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LECTURES 

ON 

POPULAR EDUCATION; 

DELIVERED TO THE 

EDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION, 

IN APRIL AND NOVEMBER 1833. 
^utiltsfjeU fit? request of tf)t Btwctors of tf)t 'association. 



By GEOKGE COMBE. 



THIRD EDITION, CORRECTED AND ENLARGED. 



" The efforts of the people are still wanting for the purpose of promoting Education ; and 
Parliament will render no substantial assistance, until the people themselves take tho 
matter in hand with energy and spirit, and the determination to do something." — Lord 
Brougham's Speech at York, 10th October 1833. 



EDINBURGH: 
MACLACHLAN, STEWART, & CO. 

LONGMAN & CO.; SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO.; AND W. S. ORR & CO. 

LONDON. 
DAVID ROBERTSON, GLASGOW; AND JAMES M'GLASHAN, DUBLIN. 



MDCCCXLYIIl. 









■ 



^ 



EDINBURGH: 
PRINTED ItV WEILL AND COMPANY, OLD FISIISIAKKET. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



The following Lectures were first delivered in April 1833, at the end 
of a course of Lectures on Phrenology ; and again in the month of Novem- 
ber of the same year. At the request of the Directors of the Philosophical 
Association, they were then published, in the form of a pamphlet. Im- 
mediately afterwards they were, with my permission, reprinted by Messrs 
W. and R. Chambers in their widely-circulated journal. At a later period, 
a part of them was incorporated into the text of the ' ' Constitution of 
Man." In these circumstances it seemed unnecessary to reproduce the 
original lectures in a separate form, and they were allowed to remain for 
some time out of print. Having been informed, however, that the public 
continued to demand the work, the present edition has been prepared, and 
I have endeavoured to make some corrections, additions, and improvements, 
which I hope may increase its value. In its present form it contains a 
condensed and comprehensive summary of the chief objects which should 
be aimed at in popular education. 

Since these Lectures first appeared, a great improvement has taken 
place in popular education ; and the principles and practices which they 
recommend, although at first assailed with ridicule, have already, to a 
considerable extent, been carried into effect. I allude particularly to the 
diffusion of useful knowledge by means of lectures on science to popular 
audiences. There is an increasing demand throughout the country for 
such instruction, and lecturers are much wanted. So far back as 1796 Dr 
Beddoes published " A Lecture introductory to a course of popular instruc- 
tion on the Constitution and Management of the Human Body," and in 1797 
lectures on Animal and Human Physiology were delivered to a miscella- 
neous audience of both sexes at Bristol. When I ventured to revive this 
practice in my own courses of instruction, and recommended it in these 
published Lectures, it was objected to as improper and dangerous. The 
subject, however, has proved so attractive and useful that already it has 
ceased to be a novelty, and numerous successful courses of lectures have 
been delivered on it in various parts of the country. 

Edinburgh, ldth January 1837. 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 

A third Edition of these Lectures being now called for, I have endea- 
voured by notes, and also by enlargement and modification of the text, to 
adapt them to the present time. In doing so, I have been forcibly struck 
with the rapid progress made by the public mind since 1833, towards form- 
ing a just estimate, not only of the importance of education, but of its 
principles, objects, and practical development. In Edinburgh one branch 
of popular education has recently been instituted, and successfully carried 
into practice, that was not even contemplated when these lectures were 
composed. Dr Mainzer has taught singing and a knowledge of music to 
more than a thousand children of the humbler classes of society, to the 



VI PREFACE. 

manifest improvement of their taste and manners, and I have no doubt 
also of their morals ; for every means of supplying innocent and refined 
pleasure necessarily tends to moral advancement. The grounds on which 
this branch of education is recommended are ably and successfully ex- 
pounded in Dr Mainzer's work on (i Music and Education."* 

While this Edition is in the press, a new Revolution has taken place in 
France, Louis Philippe has been dethroned, and a Republic proclaimed. 
Whatever may be the immediate consequences of this event, I cannot doubt 
that its ultimate result will be the extension of the power of the people in 
every country of Europe, and especially in our own. Not a day should 
be lost, therefore, in qualifying the people, by instruction and training, 
to distinguish between good and evil, and between the possible and the im- 
possible, in human institutions. 

Hitherto, the cause of national education has been greatly impeded by 
contentions regarding the teaching of religious doctrines in schools . In a 
series of pamphlets lately published,! I have endeavoured to shew that 
the world, both moral and physical, is governed by natural laws, instituted 
by the Creator to serve as guides to human conduct, and that the great 
aim of secular education should be to communicate a knowledge of these 
laws, and of the mode in which they are administered, and to train the 
young to yield obedience to them in their actions. Such an education 
would tend to protect a country from the evils of revolution. If there be 
Divine arrangements in nature, connecting consequences of good or evil 
with every mode of action, and if it be impossible to reach either indivi- 
dual or social happiness except by submitting to them, the people may be 
enabled to understand that that form of government will be most perfect 
which coincides most closely with their requirements. No revolution can 
unseat the Eternal Ruler of the Universe, or alter, or enable men to evade 
1 J is laws. If this truth were demonstrated to the youthful mind as a prac- 
tical fact, and the rising generation were trained to pay homage to it 
and its consequences, in their conduct, we should at last feel that social 
order rested on the basis of nature. The points of religious doctrine on 
which rival sects differ, are feeble as cobwebs in restraining an excited 
people in the whirlwind of revolutionary passion ; but the truths of reli- 
gion in which all are agreed, fortified by a deep conviction that the Di- 
vine Ruler has established, even in this world, an inseparable connection 
between virtue, both public and private, and prosperity, might probably 
furnish a firmer basis for the maintenance of social order, than these dis- 
cordant doctrines have ever afforded. True religion would harmonize with . 
hallow, vivify, and render practical, a scheme of education founded on the 
principles revealed to man in the order of God's secular Providence. The 
chief object of the present publication, and of the others before named, is 
to promote this conviction in the public mind. 

i" Melville Stbeet, Ediwbcbqh, 
6th March I 



Music and Education. ByDr Mainzee. Bvo, pp. 125. London : Longman & Co. 
burgh: A.dam and Charles Black, 1848. 

narks on National Education, Svo,JFourth Edition, price 4d. 
on the Relation between Religion and Science. 8vo, Fhtrd Edition, price 6d. 
Whal should Secular Education Embrace ' 8vo, price 6d. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 

Page 

Utility of Education, . . . . . 1 

View of Man's position on Earth, .... 2 

Physical Nature prepared for him, ... 4 
His faculties adapted to its constitution, . . ib. 
Hence, a knowledge of that constitution necessary to his welfare, 6 
*" Man is guided not by Instinct, hut by Reason, . . 7 
L Reason cannot act with advantage without knowledge, founded on ob- 
servation and experience, .... 8 

Present state of Education, .... 10 

Study of Languages, . . . . . ib. 

Origin of study of Greek and Latin, ... 12 
Reasons why Greek and Latin exclusively were taught at Grammar 

Schools, . . . .. . . 13 

Importance of these Languages overrated, ... 15 

Importance of studying the English language, . . 18 

Opinions of eminent authors on the subject, ... 20 

Discipline of the faculties in studying Languages and Science compared, 21 



LECTURE If. 

Education of the Industrious Classes, ... 24 
Abridgment of hours of labour necessary, ... 25 
What constitutes a good Education ? ... 28 
Language necessary as a means of acquiring and communicating know- 
ledge, ...... 29 

But knowledge of objects and their relations indispensable in useful edu- 
cation, . . , . . 30 
Particular branches of education enumerated, . . 32 
American and Prussian systems of Education, . . 34 
Education in German boarding-schools, ... 35 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



Dr Druramond's defence of the utility of scientific education to the indus- 
trious classes, ..... 
General Remarks on education for these classes, 
Training described, and its importance enforced, 
I Fees of Knowledge, ..... 
Objection that the people are incapable of improvement answered, 
Interference of the Legislature in regulating the habits of the people. 



Page 

38 
40 

41 
44 
47 
40 



LECTURE III. 



V 



Education of the Female Sex, 

Influence of Mothers on the character of their children 

Physical treatment of children, 

Moral and intellectual culture of children 

Elegant accomplishments, 

Evils attendant on imperfect female education, 

Mrs John Sandford"s observations, 

Mrs Willard's remarks, .... 

Notice of the Philosophical Association (for procuring Instruction 

ful and Entertaining Science), 
Objections considered, .... 
Answer to the objection, " A little learning is a dangerous thing," 
Importance of the education of the industrious classes 
On Prizes, Medals, and Place-taking, 



in Use- 



50 
52 
ib. 
55 
57 
58 
59 
ib. 

61 
62 
68 
73 
75 



APPENDIX. 



No. I. The Philosophical Institution described, 
No. II. Improved method of teaching Drawing. 



8$ 



LECTUBE L 



OBJECTS OF EDUCATION. 



A FEW years ago, no question was more frequently asked than, 
What is the use of Education 1 It was often difficult to give 
a satisfactory answer, not because education was of no use, 
but because utility itself was viewed so differently by differ- 
ent individuals, that it was impossible to shew that educa- 
tion was calculated to realise the precise advantage which, 
each aspired to attain. Besides, education is calculated to 
correct so many errors in practice, and to supply so many 
deficiencies in human institutions, that volumes would be ne- 
cessary to render its real importance thoroughly conspicuous. 
Instead of obtaining from education a correct view of the 
nature of man, and of the objects and duties of life, each 
individual has been left to form, upon these points, theories 
for himself, derived from the impressions made upon his 
own mind by the particular circumstances in which he has 
been placed. This has arisen from the want of a prac- 
tical philosophy of mind. No reasonable person assumes 
himself to know the sciences of Astronomy, Chemistry, or 
Physiology, without study and an appeal to nature ; yet, in 
the department of Mind, the practice is different. Almost 
every one has a set of notions of his own, which, in his mind, 
hold the place of a system of the philosophy of man ; and, 
although he may not have methodised his ideas, or even ac- 
knowledged them to himself as a theory, yet, to him, they 
constitute a standard by which he practically judges of all 
questions in morals, politics, and religion. He advocates 
whatever views coincide with them, and condemns all that 
differ from them, with as little hesitation as a professed 
theorist himself, and also without trying his own principles 
by any natural standard. In short, the great mass even of 
educated men, in judging of questions relating to morals, 
politics, and social institutions, proceed too much on first, or 
even on accidental, impressions. Hence, public measures, 
whether relating to education, religion, trade, manufactures, 
provision for the poor, criminal law, or to any other of the in- 



THEORIES OF EDUCATION. 

terests of society, instead of being treated as branches of one 
general system of economy, and adjusted on scientific prin- 
ciples, each in harmony with the others, are too often sup- 
ported or opposed on narrow and empirical grounds, — and 
discussions regarding them occasionally call forth displays of 
ignorance, prejudice, and intolerance, calculated greatly to 
obstruct the progress of improvement. Indeed, general agree- 
ment on questions of which the first principles must be found 
in the constitution of human nature, will be impossible, even 
among sensible and virtuous men, so long as no standard of 
mental philosophy is admitted to guide individual feelings 
and perceptions. Hence, when a young man, educated as a 
merchant, asks the use of any thing, the answer which will 
most thoroughly interest him, will be one shewing how much 
wealth may be acquired by it. The sincerely religious will ac- 
knowledge that to be most useful, which tends most directly 
to salvation ; while the votaries of fashion will admit the 
utility of such pursuits only as are recognised by the refined 
but frivolous and generally ill-informed circle, which to them 
constitutes the highest tribunal of taste. To expound to such 
persons, principles affecting the general interests of society, 
and to talk to them of schemes for promoting the happiness 
of human beings, in their various conditions of husbands and 
wives, parents and children, masters and servants, teachers 
and pupils, governors and subjects, appears like indulging a 
warm imagination in fanciful harangues. They are of opi- 
nion that the experience of six thousand years is sufficient to 
shew, that man is not destined in this life to be different from 
what he has always been and now is ; and that any measures 
pretending greatly to improve his. condition, however desira- 
ble, are not at all to be believed in by sensible and practical 
people. This state of things could not exist if education were 
founded on a true system of human nature, and an exposition 
of its relations to the external world. 

To enable us to form a just estimate of our position as in- 
telligent and accountable beings in this world, let us briefly 
consider, 1st, the general aspect of external nature ; and, 2d, 
our own constitution. 

All geological authorities agree in representing physical 
nature as having undergone a variety of changes, and hav- 
ing attained to the condition in which it now appears, be- 
fore Man occupied its surface. l\ace after race of plants 
and animals flourished on the earth, and were successively 
destroyed before man appeared. " It is never pretended,'' 
•ir Lyell, "that our race co-existed with assemblages 
of animals and plants, of which all or even a large proportion 



THE PHYSICAL WORLD. 6 

of the species are extinct.''* — {Principles of Geology, p. 143, 
Seventh Edition.) 

" In all these various formations," says Dr Buckland, " the 
coprolites" (or the dung of the saurian reptiles in a fossil 
state) " form records of warfare waged by successive gene- 
rations of inhabitants of our planet on one another; and the 
general law of nature, which bids all to eat and to be eaten in 
their turn, is shewn to have been co-extensive with animal ex- 
istence upon our globe, the carnivora in each period of the 
world's history fulfilling their destined office to check excess 
in the progress of life, and maintain the balance of creation." 

The history of the globe appears to shew that it has been 
constituted by the Divine Author on the principle of progres- 
sive advancement ; but whether by distinct and successive 
acts of creation, or by the development of qualities and 
capacities bestowed by Him on inorganic matter and or- 
ganic beings, we cannot determine. Great improvements 
have been effected in different species of vegetables and 
animals, by human sagacity and attention. " In the ab- 
sence," says Mr Watson, " of any proper definition of the 
term improvement, we may safely leave it to the general ver- 
dict of the public, whether the green-gage plum-tree, with 
its luscious fruit, is not an improvement upon the austere- 
berried sloe-bush ; whether the pippin and codlin apples are 
not improvements upon the wild crab ; and whether the swift- 
footed greyhound, the intelligent lapdog, and the powerful 
mastiff, are not improvements upon any known wild race of 
dog, wolf, or fox, — for it is doubtful whether the dog has not 
descended from one or both of the two latter stocks." 



* This subject, however, is still involved in great obscurity. Mr Hewett 
Watson remarks, that " Geology has shewn nothing whatever concerning the 
creation of races or individuals. Neither the mode of creation, nor the first 
state, nor yet the last state, of any race or species, has been in the slightest 
degree explained by geological discovery. The fossil records of past life are 
limited to incomplete representations of the state of individuals at death ; and 
in the older deposites the remains are scarcely more than mere copies of their 
shapes. In the more recent deposites, good skeletons, &c, are found ; but in all 
likelihood, the stony models and skeletons which have hitherto met the eye of 
man, will not bear the proportion of one individual out of every million that 
have existed. Granting this, how can any sober reasoner assert positively, on 
such meagre evidence, that intermediate forms and structures have not existed ? 
Geology is far too imperfect yet, to allow of any fair presumption, from its in- 
dividual facts, either of the transition or non-transition of one species into ano- 
ther. On the great scale, it is as clear as such evidence can make it, that one 
species has been substituted for another, but we know not how this substitution 
has been brought about; and, alloiving for the difference of time, it may well be 
questioned whether the changes brought to light by geological researches, at 
all exceed the changes now effected in the vegetable world by human efforts." 
— Examination of Mr Scott's Attach, <Scc, p. 23. 



4 ADAPTATION OF MAN 

Let ns now contemplate Man himself, and Lis adaptation 
to the external creation. The world was inhabited by liv- 
ing beings, and death and reproduction prevailed before 
Man appeared. The order of creation seems not to have 
been changed at his introduction, but he appears to have 
been adapted to it. He received an organized structure, 
and animal instincts. He took his station among, yet at the 
head of, the beings that existed at his creation. Man is, to 
a certain extent, on a level with the lower animals in his 
structure, powers, feelings, and desires, and is adapted to a 
world in which death reigns, and generation succeeds gene- 
ration. This fact, although so trite and obvious as to ap- 
pear scarcely worthy of being noticed, is of importance in 
treating of education ; because the human being, in so far as 
he resembles the inferior creatures, is capable of enjoying a 
life like theirs ; he has pleasure in eating, drinking, sleep- 
ing, and exercising his limbs ; and one of the greatest ob- 
stacles to his improvement is, that many of the race are 
contented with these enjoyments, and consider it painful to 
be compelled to seek higher sources of gratification. But 
to man's animal nature have been added by a bountiful 
Creator, moral sentiments and a vastly superior endowment 
of the reflecting faculties, which not only place him above 
all other creatures on earth, but constitute him a different 
being from any of them, a rational and accountable creature. 
These faculties are his highest and his best gifts, and the 
sources of his purest and intensest pleasures. They lead 
him directly to those important objects of his existence, — 
obedience to God, and love to his fellow-men. But this 
peculiarity attends them, that while his animal faculties, 
which are necessary for his preservation, act powerfully of 
themselves, his moral and rational faculties require to be 
cultivated, exercised, and instructed, before they will yield 
their full harvest of enjoyment. In regard to them, educa- 
tion becomes of paramount importance. 

The Creator has so arranged the external world as to 
hold forth great inducements to man to cultivate his higher 
powers, nay almost to constrain him to do so. The philo- 
sophic mind, in surveying the world as prepared for the rc- 
ception of the human race, perceives in external nature a 
assemblage of stupendous powers, too great for the 
Feeble hand of man entirely to control, but kindly subjected 
within certain limits to the influence of his will. Man is in- 
troduced on earth apparently helpless and unprovided for as 
a homeless stranger; but the soil on which he treads is en- 
dowed with a thousand capabilities of production, which re- 



TO THE PHYSICAL WOULD. O 

quire only to be elicited by his intelligence to make it yield 
him the richest returns. The impetuous torrent rolls its 
waters to the main ; but as it dashes over the mountain- 
cliff, the human hand is capable of withdrawing it from its 
course, and rendering its powers subservient to his will. 
Ocean extends over half the globe her liquid plain, in which 
no path appears, and the rude winds oft lift her waters to 
the sky ; but, there the skill of man may launch the strong- 
knit bark, spread forth the canvas to the gale, and make the 
trackless deep a highway through the world. In such a 
state of things, knowledge is truly power ; and it is obvi- 
ously the interest of human beings to become acquainted 
with the constitution and relations of every object around 
them, that they may discover its capabilities of ministering 
to their own advantage. Farther, where these physical 
energies are too great to be controlled, man has received in- 
telligence by which he may observe their course, and accom- 
modate his conduct to their influence. This capacity of 
adaptation is a valuable substitute for the power of regu- 
lating them by his will. Man cannot arrest the sun in its 
course, so as to avert the wintry storms, and cause perpe- 
tual spring to bloom around him ; but, by the proper exer- 
cise of his intelligence and corporal energies, he is able to 
foresee the approach of bleak skies and rude winds, and to 
place himself in safety from their injurious effects. These 
powers of controlling nature, and of accommodating his con- 
duct to its course, are the direct results of his rational facul- 
ties ; and in proportion to their cultivation is his sway ex- 
tended. Man, while ignorant, is in a helpless condition. 
But let him put forth his proper human capacities, and he 
will then find himself invested with the power to rear, to 
build, to fabricate, and to store up provisions ; and, by avail- 
ing himself of these resources, and accommodating his con- 
duct to the course of nature's laws, he will be able to smile 
in safety beside the cheerful hearth, when the elements 
maintain their fiercest war abroad. 

Again : We are surrounded by countless beings, inferior 
and equal to ourselves, whose qualities yield us happiness, 
or bring upon us bitter evil, according as we affect them 
agreeably or disagreeably by our conduct. To draw forth 
their excellencies, and cause them to diffuse joy around us — 
to avoid touching the harsher springs of their constitution, 
and exciting painful discord — it is necessary that we should 
know their nature, and act with a habitual regard to the 
relations established by the Creator between them and our- 
selves. 



6 NECESSITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

Man, ignorant and uncivilized, is prone to become fero- 
cious, sensual, and superstitious. The external world affords 
some enjoyments to his animal feelings, but it often confounds 
his moral and intellectual faculties. Nature exhibits to his 
mind a mighty chaos of events, and a dread display of power. 
The chain of causation appears too intricate to be unravelled, 
and the power too stupendous to be controlled. Order and 
beauty, indeed, occasionally gleam forth to his eye, from de- 
tached portions of creation, and seem to promise happiness 
and joy; but more frequently, clouds and darkness brood 
over the scene, and disappoint his fondest expectations. 
Evil seems so mixed up with good, that he regards it either as 
a direct product or an inseparable accompaniment of nature's 
arrangements. Nature is rarely contemplated with a clear 
perception of its adaptation to the purpose of promoting the en- 
joyment of man, or with a well-founded confidence in the wis- 
dom and benevolence of its Author. Man, when civilized and 
illuminated by knowledge, on the other hand, discovers in 
the objects and occurrences around him a scheme beautifully 
arranged for the gratification of his whole powers, animal, 
moral, and intellectual; he recognises in himself the intelli- 
gent and accountable subject of an all-bountiful Creator, and 
in joy and gladness desires to study the Creator's works, to 
ascertain their laws, and to yield to them a steady and a will- 
ing obedience. Without undervaluing the pleasures of his 
animal nature, he tastes the higher, more refined, and more 
enduring delights of his moral and intellectual capacities. 
He then calls aloud for education as indispensable to the 
full enjoyment of his rational powers. 

If this representation of the condition of the human being 
on earth be correct, we perceive clearly the unspeakable ad- 
vantage of applying our minds to gain knowledge, and of re- 
gulating our conduct according to rules drawn from acquired 
information. Our constitution and our position equally im- 
ply, that the grand object of our existence is, not to remain 
contented with the pleasures of more animal life, but to take 
the dignified and far more delightful station of moral, reli- 
gious, .-iiid rational occupants of this lower world. 

Education, then, moans the process of acquiring that 
knowledge of our Creator, of ourselves, and of external na- 
ture, and the formation of those habits of religious, moral, 
and intellectual enterprise and activity, which are indispen- 
sable to the evolution of all our faculties, and to the per- 
formance of our parts, with intelligence and success, in such 
a scene as I have described. 

These views may appear to many persons to be so clearly 



LOWER ANIMALS. 7 

founded in reason, as to require neither proof nor illustra- 
tion : but there are others who are little familiar with such 
contemplations, and to whom a few elucidations may be use- 
ful. As the latter are precisely those whom I desire to bene- 
fit, I solicit permission to enter into a few details, even at 
the risk of appearing tedious to the more enlightened among 
my hearers. 

To understand correctly the constitution of the human 
mind, and its need of instruction, it is useful to compare it 
with that of the inferior animals. The lower creatures are 
destined to act chiefly from instinct ; and instinct is a ten- 
dency to act in a certain way, planted in the animal by the 
Creator, without its knowing the ultimate design, or the na- 
ture of the means by which its aim is to be accomplished. 
A bee, for example, constructs its cell in conformity with 
the most rigid principles of mathematical science, according 
to which it is necessary that the fabric should possess a par- 
ticular form, and be joined to other cells at a particular 
angle, in preference to all others, in order to give it the great- 
est capacity and strength, with the least possible expenditure 
of material. The creature has no knowledge of the princi- 
ples of mathematics such as man possesses ; but it acts in 
accordance with them, by an impulse obviously planted in it 
by the Author of its being. Man is not directed by unerring 
impulses like this. Before he could construct a similar fabric 
with success, it would be necessary for him, by means of ob- 
servation and experiment, to become acquainted with the na- 
ture of the materials to be employed, and to form a clear con- 
ception of the mode of adapting them to the accomplishment of 
his design. A mother, among the inferior animals, is impelled 
by pure instinct to administer to her offspring that kind of 
protection, food, and training, which its nature and circum- 
stances require ; and so admirably does she fulfil this duty 
even at the first call, that human sagacity could not improve, 
or rather could not at all equal, her treatment. These ani- 
mals proceed without consciousness of the wisdom displayed 
in their actions ; — they do not act from knowledge and de- 
sign. Wherever design appears, there must be intelligence ; 
yet the wisdom resides not in the animals, but in their 
Author. The Creator, therefore, in constituting the bee, 
possessed perfect knowledge of the external circumstances 
in which he was about to place it, and of its relations, when 
so placed, to all other creatures and objects; and conferred 
on it powers or instincts of action adapted to secure its pre- 
servation and enjoyment. Hence, when enlightened men 
contemplate the habits and powers of animals, and compare 



8 CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 

them with their condition, they perceive wisdom and benevo- 
lence conspicuously displayed by the Creator. 

Man also has received instincts which resemble those of 
the lower animals, such as the love of sex, of offspring, of 
society, and of praise, the instinct of resentment, and many 
others ; by the exercise of which, as I have said, he may 
maintain his purely animal existence, with very little aid 
from education. But he is distinguished from the inferior 
creatures, 1st, By the possession of moral sentiments — such 
as the love of justice, of piety, of universal happiness, and, 
2(Hy, By great superiority in the reflecting faculties, fitted 
to acquire knowledge of the qualities and modes of action of 
external objects, and of their effects. 

These two classes of faculties render man a different being 
from the inferior creatures. The function of reason being 
to acquire knowledge of qualities and modes of action and 
effects, Man is not prompted to follow the most beneficial 
mode of promoting his own happiness in the direct and un- 
renectinc: manner in which the inferior creatures are led to 
that end. The human female, for example, because she pos- 
sesses the innate love of offspring, will feel as lively joy at 
the birth of a child and as warm an attachment towards it, 
and will as ardently desire its welfare, as the most devoted 
among the inferior creatures. But, devoid of all instruction 
and experience, she will not administer towards it the same 
perfect treatment, with reference to its wants, as the mother 
in the lower scale ; and for this reason, that, in the animal, 
the instinct is directed to its proper mode of gratification by 
the Author of Nature : He prompts her to do exactly what 
J lis wisdom knows to be necessary ; whereas, in the human 
being, the propensity is left to the guidance of reason. Wo- 
man is commanded to exert her intellect in studying the 
physical and mental constitution of herself and her offspring, 
in order that she may rear it with success while it needs her 
assistance ; and if she shall neglect to perform this duty, 
she and it may suffer evil in being exposed to the unfavour- 
able influence of external objects and beings, to the action of 
which, in her state of ignorance, she does not know how to 
adapt her conduct, 

Every day affords examples of the truth of this remark. 
A young holy, when in infancy, lost both parents; but suffi- 
cient property was left to her to enable her to attain what is 
generally called a good education. She was reared in a fa- 
shionable boarding-school, and in due time was respectably 
married. When her first child was born, she was extremely 
perplexed. Never having lived where there were infants 



LOWEIi ANIMALS. 9 

in the family, she had had no opportunity of learning by ob- 
servation how to rear such tender beings ; and never having 
been taught any thing of the structure, or functions, or wants, 
of the human infant, she possessed no principles by which 
she could judge of the treatment proper for her child. In her 
anxiety to do it justice, she asked advice of every female visi- 
tor, and was speedily bewildered amidst the incongruous re- 
commendations which she received. Unable to decide for 
herself, she followed now one method and then another, till 
in a few weeks the unhappy infant died. This is an extreme 
case : but an intelligent female friend, who communicated it 
to me, had no doubt that the child perished through lack of 
knowledge in the mother. 

Many persons are not aware that human feelings are more 
blind than those of the lower animals, and that they lead to 
worse results when not directed by reason. They imagine 
that if they possess a feeling strongly, such as the love of 
offspring, or the love of God, they cannot err in the mode of 
gratifying it ; consequently, they act with all the energy of 
impulse, and all the blindness of infatuation. A mighty 
change will be effected in human conduct, when the people 
at large become acquainted with the indispensable necessity 
of knowledge and reflection to the proper direction of their 
feelings, and with the fact that knowledge is the grand ele- 
ment without which reason cannot be sufficiently exerted. 

Man, therefore, being an improvible being, has been fur- 
nished with reason, and been left to discover, by the exercise 
of it, his own nature, the nature of external objects, and the 
relations between himself and them, and to adapt the one to 
the other in this temporal sphere for his own advantage. 
When he shall do so, and fulfil also his moral and religious 
duties, he will assume his proper station as a rational being. 
The only limit to this proposition is, that each of his facul- 
ties, bodily and mental, and every external object, has re- 
ceived a definite constitution, and is regulated by precise 
laws, so that limits have been set to human aberration, and 
also to human attainments ; but within these limits, a wide 
scope for producing happiness, by harmonious and wise adap- 
tations, or misery, by discordant and foolish combinations, 
exists. 

I do not predicate what degree of perfection man is capable 
of attaining on earth by these means. Looking at the condi- 
tion of the inferior animals, I should not expect optimism ; 
because disease and death are incident to them all : but, on 
dispassionately comparing the enjoyments of the inferior 
creatures, in relation to their natures, with the past and pre- 



10 LANGUAGES. 

sent enjoyments of the human race, in relation to their su- 
perior capacities, I fear that man does not surpass them to 
the extent which he ought to do, if he made a proper use of 
the means fairly in his power of promoting his own happiness. 
Comparing the civilized Christian inhabitants of modern 
Europe, with the ignorant, ferocious, filthy, and helpless 
savages of New South Wales, we perceive a vast advance ; 
but I do not believe that the limits of attainable perfection 
have yet been reached even by the best of Europe's sons. All, 
therefore, that I venture to hope for is, that man, by the pro- 
per employment of the means presented to him, may arrive at 
last at a condition of enjoyment of his mortal existence, as 
great, in relation to his rational nature, as that of the lower 
animals is in relation to their more limited natures. This is 
no more than saying, that the Creator has made man as per- 
fect as a reasonable being, as He has made the lower animals 
as instinctive creatures. 

If then, man, by his constitution, be an intelligent, moral, 
religious, and, therefore, an improvable being, but born without 
knowledge, he must be instructed, and trained to act in har- 
mony with the order of nature, of which he forms a part, as 
the first stage in his progress towards enjoyment. In other 
words, he must be educated. 

Let us inquire, then, into the present condition of educa- 
tion . 

A young man is believed by many to have received a good 
education when he has been taught reading, writing, arith- 
metic, Latin, and a smattering of Greek. — Let us endeavour 
to estimate the true value of these attainments. They appear 
to be considerable, and I am far from undervaluing them. 
They are the instruments, by the diligent use of which much 
useful and practical knowledge of nature and her laws may 
be attained ; but in themselves they do not constitute such 
knowledge. A few observations will suffice to elucidate this 
proposition. 

First, In regard to language in general, and what are 
termed " the learned languages" in particular, I remark, that 
we may have an extensive knowledge of objects that exist, 
and their relations, with only few words by which to express 
our notions of them. Thus, a self-taught artizan may ad- 
vance far into the principles and practice of his art, before he 
lets read books and become acquainted with the terms gene- 
rally used to designate the objects and processes with which 
lie familiarly deals. Such a man would have more ideas than 
words ; and this would be a great evil, for he could not com- 
municate his knowledge, or receive instruction from books. 



LANGUAGES. 11 

Other individuals, however, may have more words than ideas, 
which also would be inconvenient ; for they would have the 
means of communicating knowledge but lack knowledge to 
communicate ; they would be great scholars, but could teach 
mankind no practical art or science. 

Words are merely arbitrary signs for expressing feelings 
and ideas. It is desirable to possess an ample store of useful 
information, and an equally extensive stock of words ; but it 
is better to have ten ideas, and only ten words to express 
them, although all the words should belong to one language, 
than to have only one idea, and ten words in as many different 
languages for communicating it. For example, a monk, who 
has only seen a horse passing by the window of his cell, may 
know that this animal is named in Greek, Iqneog (hippos) ; in 
Latin, equus ; in English, a horse; in French, cheval ; in 
Italian, cavallo ; in German, pferd ; and, by some persons, he 
may be supposed to be highly learned. He is indeed consi- 
derably learned, but unfortunately not on the subject of the 
horse itself, but only on the names by which it is designated 
in different countries. His stock of real knowledge would 
be only that which he had picked up by looking at the creature 
through the window, and would not be in the slightest degree 
increased by the acquirement of these six words to express the 
name of the animal. His original notion of a horse, whatever 
it was, would continue unextended by all these additions to 
his knowledge of its names. The person of a man is neither 
stronger, taller, nor more graceful, because he possesses six 
suits of clothes, than it would be if he had only one ; and so 
it is with the mind. A youth, trained in a stable-yard, whose 
attention had been directed to the various qualities of a good 
hackney, hunter, or race-horse, would be far superior, as a 
practical judge of horses, to the monk, although he knew the 
name of the animal only in his mother tongue. He would 
excel him in selecting, employing, managing, and rearing 
horses. He would possess ideas about the animal itself — 
would know what points were good and what bad about it ; 
how it would work in different situations ; how it would thrive 
on particular kinds of food ; and in what manner it should 
habitually be treated, so as to obtain the most complete de- 
velopment of its natural powers. This is practical knowledge : 
acquaintance with words is learning. 

Hitherto education has been conducted too much on the 
principle of looking at the world only from the window of 
the school-room and the college, and teaching the names of 
beings and things in a variety of languages, to the neglect 
of the study of the beings and things themselves ; whereas 



12 LANGUAGES. 

man, as a creature destined for action, fitted to control nature 
to some extent, and, where this is beyond his power, left to 
accommodate his conduct to its course, requires positive know- 
ledge of things that exist, of their qualities, modes of action, 
and laws, and has little use for words which go beyond his 
stock of ideas and emotions. 

Language, however, is not to be depreciated or despised. 
Man is obviously formed to live in society ; his happiness is 
increased by co-operation and interchange of thought and 
emotion with his fellows ; and language, oral and written, is 
his natural medium of communication. It is of great im- 
portance, therefore, to every individual, to possess words suf- 
ficient to express all his ideas and emotions, and such ex- 
pertness in using them in speech and writing, as may enable 
him readily and successfully to convey to other minds the 
precise impressions existing in his own. 

Keeping in view, therefore, that language is of importance 
as a means of communicating what we know and feel, we 
may proceed to inquire into the value of Greek and Latin as 
elements of education. The history of their introduction into 
schools, and of the circumstances which led to their past high 
estimation, merits our attention. 

The Greeks and Romans were the earliest nations in 
Europe who attained to civilization ; in other words, they 
were the first who so far cultivated their mental faculties as 
to acquire numerous and tolerably precise ideas of govern- 
ment, laws, morals, intellectual philosophy, and the fine 
arts. In consequence of their minds possessing ideas, their 
languages contained terms to express them. In the fourth 
and fifth centuries, the Roman empire was overrun by ignorant 
barbarians from the North of Europe, whose mental powers, 
not having been cultivated, had not formed the concep- 
tions now alluded to, and whose languages, in consequence, 
were as barren as their thoughts. A long night of darkness 
prevailed over Europe, until at length civilization again 
dawned where it had last set — in Italy. The cities of that 
country, situated under a genial climate, and surrounded by 
a fertile soil, had, as early as the twelfth and thirteenth cen- 
turies, made considerable progress in arts and manufactures ; 
they accumulated wealth, which produced leisure and a desire 
for refined enjoyment, whence a taste for literature gradually 
arose. 

The manuscripts of Greece and Home had long slumbered 
in the cells of monastic institutions. Many of them had been 
erased to give place to monkish legends ; but now they were 
ardently disinterred. When recovered and understood, they 



LANGUAGES. 13 

were found to convey more sublime and elegant poetry, — 
more refined yet nervous eloquence, — more brilliant, pointed, 
and ingenious wit, — with profounder and juster views on the 
subjects of law, criticism, and philosophy, — than had been 
known since the subversion of civilization ; and all these 
treasures, too, embodied in languages so rich, discriminative, 
and refined, that Europe, in addition to this accession of 
knowledge, was at once furnished with exquisite vehicles of 
thought, without the labour of invention. 

In these circumstances, Greek and Latin naturally became 
objects of intense interest and study with all men who aspired 
to superior intelligence. There was great good sense in this 
direction of their mental energies ; because, at that time, and 
in their situation, these languages really unlocked to them 
the richest intellectual stores existing in the world, and put 
them in possession also of media for communicating their 
thoughts, greatly surpassing, in refinement, copiousness, and 
power, any that they could have obtained by their own inven- 
tion, or found in the literature of their native countries. 

For these reasons, colleges, schools, bursaries, and other 
institutions, were established, for teaching and cultivating 
the Greek and Latin languages, and tkej obtained the ap-' 
pellation of " humane literature, 1 ' liteile HUMANIO&es ; 
eminence in them became the passport to fame ; and a per- 
son intimately conversant with them was dignified with the 
title of " a learned man." 

In the course of time, however, the nations of Europe, aid- 
ed by the invention of printing, and latterly, by stupendous 
discoveries in science and the arts, as well as by the wide 
diffusion of Christianity among the people, far outstripped 
the Greeks and Homans in their most useful attainments. 
The Italians, French, English, and Germans, made gigantic 
strides in knowledge, morality, and religion : and their lan- 
guages, by a law of the human constitution, kept pace w r ith 
their emotions and ideas. England could long ago boast 
of a Bacon, a Shakespear, a Milton, a Newton, and a 
Locke ; and she is now able to exhibit an additional list of 
names, so splendid and extensive as almost to defy repeti- 
tion, of men who have embodied in her language thoughts 
and inventions so profound, admirable, and useful, that the 
philosophy, the science, and the arts, of the ancient world 
sink into comparative insignificance before them. 

This change of circumstances has altered the relative value 
of Greek and Latin to the English student. There is now no 
knowledge relating to the physical and moral worlds contained 
in these languages, which does not exist clearly expressed in 



14 LANGUAGES. 

English ; and there is no mode of feeling or of thought sub- 
servient to the practical purposes of life, that may not be as 
forcibly and elegantly clothed in our native language as in 
them. Human institutions and practices, however, often 
long survive the occasions which gave rise to them ; and from 
five to seven of the best years of our lives are still dedicated 
to the study of the learned languages, as if all their original 
importance remained. 

At the time when public schools, such as the High School 
of Edinburgh and the grammar-schools of the different 
burghs of Scotland, were instituted, no science existed that 
could benefit the people. The subjects taught in these semi- 
naries, therefore, were nearly co-extensive with those ex- 
pounded in the universities. In the primary schools, the 
pupils were taught the elements of Greek and Latin ; and in 
the colleges the same studies were prosecuted to the highest 
point which the time and capacity of the scholar enabled him 
to reach. In the progress of years, however, arts and sciences 
have been discovered. In Scotland, the Universities have 
to some extent kept pace with the growing knowledge of the 
age. In them, lectures are now delivered on the physical 
sciences, and on most of the branches of medicine. In short, 
the knowledge of Nature in all her departments is now taught; 
Greek and Latin constituting only departments of the gene- 
ral system of instruction. 

If our primary schools had kept pace with this improve- 
ment, all would have been well. If we had followed the 
spirit of practical wisdom manifested by our ancestors, and 
extended our elementary instruction in proportion to the 
enlargement of our university education, the knowledge of 
the people would have been far superior to what it actually 
is. But, by a strange anomaly, our primary schools have, 
till within these few years, been allowed to stand still, while 
the universities have advanced. These schools have con- 
tinued to teach little else than English, Greek, and Latin; 
and the consecjuences have been baneful. The great mass 
of the people of the middle and lower ranks, having been 
taught exclusively at these and the parish schools, have been 
led to believe languages to be practical knowledge ; and they 
have been defrauded of the opportunity of acquiring elemen- 
tary instruction in the arts, sciences, and other departments 
of useful knowledge. They have wasted in studying — or in 
attempting to study — Greek and Latin, the only time which 
their pressing occupations left at their command for obtain- 
ing information. They have been sent into the world too 



LANGUAGES. 15 

ignorant of the stores of moral and intellectual instruction 
presented by the works of the Creator. 

The higher orders, again, after having spent from five to 
seven years in what they were led to believe were prepara- 
tory studies, have entered the universities and found them- 
selves obliged to commence with the very rudiments of the 
sciences. 

In the great public institutions for the maintenance and 
education of destitute children, the system of teaching chiefly 
languages exhibited its fruits in a very tangible form. "While 
children living in the houses of their parents, learned some- 
thing of real life by intercourse with society, perusing news- 
papers, and observing passing occurrences, those shut up 
within the walls of public institutions, and excluded from 
these sources of information, presented at the end of their 
education a lamentable spectacle of ignorance. I have been 
informed, by men engaged in practical business who have 
received apprentices from such institutions, that the boys, 
on their entrance into active life, appeared as if they had just 
dropped from the moon. Every thing was strange to them ; 
and very little of what had been previously taught to them, 
was applicable, in their new condition, to useful purposes. 
"What I contend for is, that common sense should be employ- 
ed in selecting studies for the primary schools as well as in 
the universities ; and that in these seminaries* the elements 
of useful knowledge, in addition to languages, should be 
taught. 

In surveying, then, the practice of confining education in 
primary schools chiefly to languages, we observe that the 
following consequences ensue. First, The intellectual facul- 
ties desire knowledge as their natural food, and it is only 
after a considerable stock of ideas has been acquired, and 
many emotions experienced, that the value of words, as a 
means of expressing them, can be appreciated. By the com- 
mon selection of studies, however, little knowledge of things 

* Since these lectures were written, a great improvement has been introduced 
into the Regulations of George Hekiot's Hospital, in Edinburgh. On 1st 
November 1832, it was enacted by the Governors, that the branches of Educa- 
tion for the senior boys " shall be such as may be interesting to all these boys, 
whatever may be their destination in after life ; and among the branches enu- 
merated are, " the first principles of Natural History and .Mechanical Philo- 
sophy." In October 1836, I saw preparations in progress in George Gor- 
don's Hospital in Aberdeen for teaching the elements of natural science to the 
boys educated in that institution. Similar improvements have taken place in 
other institutions; and latterly, the pauper children of the City of Edinburgh, 
instead of being shut up in the workhouse, have been boarded out in resj>ectable 
families of the working classes, and trained and educated under their guidance 
and official superintendence. 



16 LANGUAGES. 

is communicated, and children are compelled to proceed at 
once to learn difficult, copious, and obsolete languages — to 
burden their memories with words corresponding to which 
they have no ideas. This course of study being an outrage 
upon Nature, — tedium, disgust, and suffering, invade the 
youthful mind. As a means of conquering aversion, severe 
discipline used to be, and occasionally still is, resorted to : 
This being felt to be unjust, rouses the lower feelings and 
debases the higher sentiments, — while the intellect is starved 
and impaired by dealing habitually with sounds to which no 
clear conceptions are attached. 

Second!?/, Under this system, children make no substan- 
tial progress in any useful acquirement. Nine out of ten of 
them drawl away the years of their allotted penance, and 
within a brief space after its close, forget much of what they 
had learned with so much labour and pain ; and even the 
tenth, who, from a higher natural talent for languages, per- 
haps distinguished himself at school, does not, on entering 
the counting-room or workshop, always find himself as supe- 
rior to his competitors in practical business as in classical 
attainments. 

If the individual select commerce or manufactures for his 
occupation for life, the time devoted to the dead languages is 
to some extent misapplied. Nine-tenths of the children edu- 
cated in a commercial town do not follow professions for 
which Greek and Latin are indispensable ; and hence the 
time and money expended, by at least this proportion of pupils, 
might have been better employed. The habits of mental ac- 
tivity and application which they acquire in contending with 
the difficulties of these languages, constitute the most valu- 
able results of their instruction. To them the languages 
themselves are of comparative little utility. Professor Christi- 
son, when examined some years ago before the Royal Commis- 
sion which visited the University of Edinburgh, stated, that 
at the High School he had been dux of the Greek Class, and 
at the College had gained a prize for skill in that language, and 
was naturally fond of it; but that, from the time when lie 
began to study medicine, he found his attention so fully oc- 
cupied by substantial science, that he had scarcely opened a 
Greek book : while he had been obliged to study French and 
German for the sake of the medical information to which 
they were the means of access.* 

* I heard the statement i:; tin- texl made some few years ago by a friend, and 
noted it at the time ; but, before publishing it. I wrote to Professor Christison, 
mentioning my desire to ascertain if it were correct, and he kindly sent me the 
following letter: — 



LANGUAGES. 17 

It is an error to suppose that Greek and Latin are indispen- 
sably necessary to enable a boy to understand his own lan- 



" To George Combe, Esq. 

" My Dear Sir, — The evidence before the University Commis- 
sioners was never published, though printed ; nor have I seen that part of my 
evidence to which you refer since the time it was given. But to the best of my 
recollection, I stated in regard to Greek — very much as you have put it in your 
letter — that, in my youth, I had cultivated it for about five years, and had 
made some proficiency in it, being fond of the language ; but that I had since 
found so little occasion to put it to practical use, although pursuing the various 
branches of my profession as objects of scientific study, that I did not believe 
I could at that moment translate a single passage of Greek which might be 
placed before me. Such is certainly still the state of matters with me and my 
Greek ; and I had occasion very lately, in our discussions in the Senatus Aca- 
demicus regarding the propriety of preliminary general education for Doctors 
of Medicine, to renew my objections to Greek as one of them, in the terms now 
mentioned. I am almost certain that, in my evidence before the Commission, 
I also added, that if any other language but Latin were to be required, I should 
infinitely prefer placing French, and even German too, in our Statuta. 

" My opinion regarding Greek shortly is, that it is a most desirable branch 
of literature for imparting general knowledge and cultivation to the mind ; but, 
for direct professional purposes, is of so little consequence, both in itself and 
likewise as compared with modern languages and the exact sciences, that, con- 
sidering the great augmentation of the branches of proper medical study in 
these days, the pursuit of it, as a compulsory measure for medical students, is 
a mere waste of time and labour. 

" Believe me yours very truly, 

" R. Christison. 

"November, 23, 1833. 
" 3 Great Stuart Street." 

" P.S. — I have no objection to your making any public use of my sentiments 
which you may desire ; for I am sure they coincide with those entertained by 
most qualified judges whom I have conversed with on the subject ; and I am 
most anxious at the present moment — when the matter of medical education is 
about to be taken up by Government, — that unprofessional men of common sense 
be not led away by the natural partiality of classical scholars for their favourite 
pursuit, or by the recollection, that, in former times, when medicine and the 
medical sciences were in small compass, and the student had therefore ample 
time for collateral studies, Greek was naturally enough considered a necessary 
branch of knowledge, because it was one of the almost indispensable tests of a 
man of cultivated mind or a learned profession." 

I consider the cause of education much benefited by the testimony of Pro- 
fessor Christison in the prefixed letter. It is highly characteristic of that bold, 
independent, and practical understanding, which has raised him at an early 
age to a distinguished place in the University of his native city. 

While, however, this Lecture was in the press in 1833, a friend sent me 
the following information : — " It is curious that, at this moment, the Statuta 
Solennia of the University of Edinburgh for the degree of M.D., should for the 
first time appear in an English dress. An adequate knowledge of Latin is still, 
of course, required ; but if the graduate shew that he can easily read Celsus or 
Cicero de Natura Deorum, no more is demanded : the great examination goes 
on in English, and the modest student is no longer perplexed by having to 
think and speak in a dead language." 

B 



18 LANGUAGES. 

guage. This must be the case only where no adequate pains 
have been bestowed by teachers to convey fully the meaning 
of English expressions. All words are mere arbitrary sounds ; 
and, in itself, a sound invented by an Englishman is as capa- 
ble of being rendered intelligible by proper definition, as one 
first suggested by a Greek or Roman. A great proportion 
of the words which compose the English language are de- 
rived from the Saxon ; yet few persons think a knowledge of 
that language necessary for the due understanding of their 
native tongue. The grand requisites to the right use of 
speech are two, — clear notions and accurate definitions of 
the words employed to express them. The former will be 
best attained by studying things and their relations, and the 
latter by a careful exposition of our mother- tongue, by teachers 
who know scientifically both the things signified and the ge- 
nius of the language. The derivation of words is not always 
an index to their true signification ; artery means literally 
air-vessel, yet it circulates blood ; physiology is derived from 
(puetg, nature, and Xoyog, discourse, — yet in English it is used 
to designate only the doctrine of animal and vegetable func- 
tions. In teaching etymology, therefore, we must often 
guard the student against the errors into which it would lead 
him ; so that the difficulty of his understanding his native 
tongue, is to that extent increased by his Greek and Latin 
studies. 

Various obvious reasons exist why so little of English is 
understood by those who learn it and no other language or 
science at school. Owing to the deficiency of their own edu- 
cation, teachers themselves, in general, do not possess dis- 
tinct knowledge of the things signified by the sounds which 
they communicate ; and, from not understanding the ideas, 
they have it not in their power to define words accurately. 
Hence they cannot, and do not, bring together before the 
minds of their pupils, clear conceptions of the things signi- 
fied, and of the signs ; without the combination of which the 
right use of speech is impracticable. Further, schoolmasters, 
in general, communicate only the sounds of words, and the 
abstract rules of grammar ; but this is not teaching a language. 
Teaching a language implies unfolding its structure, idiom, 
and powers — a task which requires extensive information and 
much reflection. * 

A professor of English, therefore, would be more useful to 
nine out of ten of the pupils of any academy for the educa- 
tion of the industrious classes, than professors of Greek and 

* Since the text was written, a groat improvement has taken place in many 
schools in the mode of teaching English. In many instances, the principles 
here recommended have heen practically adopted. 



LANGUAGES. 19 

Latin ; and it should be only after English had been taught 
in this way, or by some other method, adapted to the human 
understanding, and without success, that the conclusion 
should be drawn that it cannot be understood sufficiently for 
all useful and ornamental purposes, without a previous know- 
ledge of Greek and Latin. 

The extensive study of Greek and Latin by learned men, 
has led to the practice of compounding many new words out of 
Greek roots ; and as Chemistry, Geology, and other branches 
of Natural History, are advancing with cheering rapidity, 
multitudes of purely Greek words are added to our lan- 
guage every year, and the uninitiated suffer great incon- 
venience from not understanding them. This evil, I believe, 
is to a great extent unavoidable. The things described are 
new in science, and new names are needed by which to de- 
signate them. Uninstructed readers are unacquainted with 
the objects, as well as with their names. If the objects were 
studied, which, can be done only by observation, no difficulty 
would be found in comprehending the words, although they 
be derived from Greek and Latin roots. It would be ex- 
tremely difficult to give to English terms that scientific pre- 
cision which is attainable by using names compounded of 
Greek and Latin roots. Explanatory dictionaries, however, 
of words, common and scientific, borrowed from these lan- 
guages, have been published ; so that no one is compelled to 
study ancient tongues for six or seven years, for the sake of 
understanding the derivations of a few hundreds of scientific 
terms. In a very useful work by Dr R. Harrison Elack, en- 
titled " The Student's Manual " (published by Longman and 
Co.), the Greek roots are printed in the Greek character, 
and also in the Roman, by which means unlearned readers 
may become acquainted with the Greek letters, and many 
common Greek words, almost without an effort. 

It has often been observed that the Greeks themselves 
studied no language except their own, and yet attained to 
exquisite delicacy and dexterity in the use of it; and why 
may not the English rival them in this exploit \ The objec- 
tion, that Greek is a primitive, and English a derivative 
tongue, is met by the answer, that every word is merely a 
sound indicative of an idea or an emotion ; and that it makes 
no difference in the possibility of comprehending the mean- 
ing of it, whether the sound was invented by the English 
themselves, or borrowed by them from the Greeks or Ro- 
mans. In learning the meaning of Greek words, the student 
must connect the thing signified directly with the expres- 
sion, because he has no etymology to render the Greek intel- 
ligible. But if he can comprehend Greek by merely connect- 



20 LANGUAGES. 

ing the idea with the word, why may he not learn to under- 
stand English by a similar process \ It may be added, that 
some of the most eminent of our English authors, such as 
Shakespear, Cobbett, Burns, and a whole host of female 
writers, had little or no acquaintance with the dead lan- 
guages ; and that there are not wanting instances of learned 
critics, like Bentley, whose classical knowledge did not en- 
able them to express themselves in their native tongue with 
tolerable correctness, gracefulness, and ease. 

We have the testimony of several of the greatest masters 
in English literature against the existing practice. 

" It is deplorable," says Cowley in his Essays, " to con- 
sider the loss which children make of their time at most 
schools, employing, or rather casting away, six or seven 
years in the learning of words only, and that very imper- 
fectly." 

Locke, in his Treatise on Education, asks : " "Would not a 
Chinese, who took notice of our way of breeding, be apt to 
imagine that all our young gentlemen were designed to be 
teachers and professors of the dead languages of foreign 
countries, and not to be men of business in their own % '' 

Gibbon the historian remarks, that " a finished scholar 
may emerge from the head of Westminster or Eton in total 
ignorance of the business and conversation of English gen- 
tlemen in the latter end of the eighteenth century." 

Mr Moore, who cites these authorities in his notices of 
the Life of Lord Byron,* adds, that that gifted poet was a 
miserable Greek and Latin scholar while he attended Har- 
row School ; that he hated the task of learning these lan- 
guages ; and that he acquired his astonishing copiousness, 
flexibility, and beauty of style, by extensive miscellaneous 
reading in his native tongue. Milton says, " Though a lin- 
guist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel 
cleft this world into, yet, if he have not studied the solid 
things in them, as well as the words and lexicons, he were 
nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man as any yeo- 
man or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect 
only." And Dr Adam Smith observes, that " it seldom hap- 
pens that a man, in any part of his life, derives any conve- 
niency or advantage from some of the most laborious and 
troublesome parts of his education." — Wealth of Xations, 
B. v. c. 1. 

Education, then, consisting chiefly of languages, leaves 



Vol. i. p. sp. 90. Murray, 1832. 



LANGUAGES. 21 

the mind of the pupil ignorant of things, ignorant of men, 
and ignorant of the constitution of the social system in which 
he is destined to move. He is trained in abstractions, and 
among shadows ; and when he enters practical life he finds 
that his real education is only at its commencement. 

Education consisting of a knowledge of philosophy and 
science, on the contrary, produces an early and a deep con- 
viction that man is made for action ; that he is placed among 
agents, which he must direct, or to which he must accom- 
modate his conduct ; that everything in the world is regu- 
lated by laws instituted by the Creator; that all objects 
which exist — animate and inanimate — have received definite 
qualities and constitutions, and that good arises from their 
proper, and evil from their improper, application. This 
education makes known what these qualities are. It invi- 
gorates the understanding, and gives boldness and inde- 
pendence to the sentiments. 

The practical effect of the two modes of instruction must 
be widely different. 

I have heard the practice of teaching the ancient lan- 
guages as the chief branches of education defended on the 
ground, that the difficulties which the study of them presents 
afford an admirable means of training the intellectual fa- 
culties to contend with obstacles, and that discipline more 
than knowledge constitutes the practical value of education. 
In answer to this argument I observe, that the Creator, in 
bestowing on us faculties fitted to become acquainted with 
external nature, and in rendering us happy or miserable in 
proportion to the extent to which we place ourselves in ac- 
cordance w 7 ith his laws, must certainly have adapted these 
objects to our mental constitution in such a manner that the 
study of them, while it carries positive advantages in its 
train, should also beneficially exercise the faculties them- 
selves by means of which it is conducted. Accordingly, it 
appears to me that the power of observation, on the strength 
and acuteness of which the talent for practical business 
greatly depends, will be better disciplined by studying the 
forms, colours, magnitudes, and arrangements, of the differ- 
ent parts of minerals, earths, metals, salts, plants, and ani- 
mals, than by learning merely the distinctions between modes, 
tenses, genders, and cases, in two or three obsolete lan- 
guages ; and that the reflecting faculties will be better trained 
to vigour by investigating the active phenomena presented 
by the objects comprehended in the sciences of Chemistry, 
Natural Philosophy, and Physiology, than by contending 
with the subtleties of Greek and Roman authors. In the 



22 LANGUAGES. 

one case the faculties are employed directly on the objects 
suited to them in creation ; — in the other, they are occupied 
with artificial inventions in one particular department of in- 
tellect alone. In the one case, every item of knowledge 
gained, possesses intrinsic value ; — in the other, the ideas 
acquired are of slender utility beyond the discipline which 
the study of them affords. The study of nature, then, calls 
into existence a much greater amount of thought than does the 
study of languages. 

It has been said also in defence of Greek and Latin as the 
substance of education, that these languages become the 
basis on which a vast fabric of useful knowledge may be 
reared. The pupils, we are told, are instructed in the geo- 
graphy and history, and in the animal and mineral produc- 
tions, of the countries in which the events recorded in the 
ancient classics occurred. This, however, i3 an acknow- 
ledgment that these branches of information are valuable in 
themselves ; and then the only remaining question is, whether 
natural science, history, and geography, will be best taught 
as mere appendages to Greek and Roman literature ; or 
whether they be not entitled to take the lead, on account of 
their own inherent excellence, and of their superior adapta- 
tion to gratify and improve the mental faculties. Those who 
maintain that they are not, give the preference to the artifi- 
cial and abstract products of the human intellect in ages when 
science was scarcely known, over the ever-enduring and per- 
fect works of the Creator, as strengthening studies for the 
youthful mind ! 

Again, it is argued by some person, that in studying science, 
we acquire a knowledge only of the names of alkalies, acids, 
earths, salts, minerals, plants, and. animals, which, after all, is 
an exercise of mere verbal memory — a species of parrot- 
practice calculated to puff up the youthful mind with conceit, 
and is in itself far less useful than a real acquaintance with 
the principles of universal grammar, and with the literature of 
two of the greatest nations of antiquity. The fundamental 
proposition in this argument is at variance with fact. In a 
proper course of instruction in science, the pupil is never 
taught the name of any object, until he shall have been made 
acquainted with the object itself. And, in regard to strength- 
ening the judgment, it appears to me that an individual who 
is trained to habits of accurate observation, who learns early 
that the objects of creation are agents acting and reacting on 
each other and on himself; that they operate according to 
regular laws ; and that man may control, direct, and apply 
some of them by his own energy and skill, while to the in- 



LANGUAGES. 23 

fluence of others he must accommodate his conduct ; — is much 
better prepared to enter life with a vigorous and disciplined 
understanding than one who has spent five, six, or seven 
years chiefly in studying the abstractions, and conquering the 
difficulties, of the Greek and Roman classics. It is no doubt 
useful to train the youthful mind to contend with and sur- 
mount difficulties ; but these are presented in abundance, 
and in the most beneficial form, in the study of nature. In 
exercising the eyes, we would not teach a child to squint, 
because this is more difficult than looking straight ; and in 
exercising the legs, we would not direct the pupil to walk 
chiefly on his tiptoes, because this demands greater vigour 
in the muscles than walking on the full sole of the foot : yet 
it would be equally rational to do so, as to select the intri- 
cacies of Greek and Latin grammar as mental exercises on 
account of the difficulties which they present to the under- 
standing. No man seriously engaged in the study of science, 
ever found his path too flowery, or the obstacles to his pro- 
gress too few. Yet the difficulties which he encounters are 
stimulating, because the scheme of creation is adapted to the 
constitution of his understanding. He feels so greatly bene- 
fited and so highly delighted with whatever knowledge he 
has gained, that the labour of adding to his stores, although 
severe, is pleasant. He is cheered also by the consciousness 
that his powers of investigation increase in proportion to his 
attainments and perseverance. 

The greatest evils attending a purely classical education 
appear to me to be the ignorance in which it leaves the pupil 
of the objects, agents, and relations existing in nature and 
social life, and the extent to which, in consequence, his mind 
is exposed to the influence of prejudice and superstition. A 
thorough education in natural knowledge, on the other hand, 
enlarges, invigorates, and humanizes the whole mental powers, 
wherever they possess native aptitude for improvement. 



( 24 ) 
LECTURE II. 

WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD EDUCATION \ 

The principles which I have hitherto advanced are appli- 
cable to all classes of human beings ; but the chief subjects 
of the present lectures are the education. 1st, Of the indus- 
trious portion of the community, including all who live by 
their labour and their talents, and do not belong to the learned 
professions ; and, 'Idly, Of females of every rank, for whom 
no adequate means of instruction in useful knowledge are, in 
general, provided. 

1. In regard to the education of the industrious classes. 
They constitute between thirteen and fourteen out of the 
sixteen millions of people in Great Britain. Our opinions 
of the kind of education which they should receive, will de- 
pend on the objects which we assign to their lives. If they 
have been created by Providence merely to toil and pay 
taxes, to eat, sleep, and transmit existence to future genera- 
tions, a limited education may suffice : but if they have been 
born with the full faculties of moral, intellectual, and reli- 
gious beings ; if they are as capable, when instructed, of 
studying the works of God, of obeying His laws, of loving 
Him and admiring His institutions, as any class of the com- 
munity ; in short, if they are rational beings, capable of all 
the duties, and susceptible of all the enjoyments, which be- 
long to the rational character ; then no education is sufficient 
for them which leaves any portion of their highest powers 
waste and unproductive. This is the light in which I regard 
them ; and the grand question is, What mode of life, and 
what kind of pursuits, are best adapted to the nature of man ? 
In answering this question, we must keep in mind, that hu- 
man nature consists of the following elements : — 

1st, An organised body, requiring food, exercise, and rest, 
in due proportions ; 

2d, Animal propensities, requiring gratification ; 

3d, Moral sentiments, demanding exercise and enjoy- 
ment ;* 

4th, Intellectual faculties, calculated to acquire knowledge, 
and intended to direct the whole voluntary functions, bodily 
and mental, in the pursuit of their objects. 



* The term mora when used in these lectures, always implies the 

innate. 



LIMITATION OF LABOUR. 25 

In the present state of society, the industrious classes, or 
great mass of the people, live in the habitual infringement of 
several important laws of their nature. Life with too many 
of them is spent to so great an extent in labour, that their 
moral and intellectual powers are stinted of exercise and gra- 
tification ; and hence their mental enjoyments are chiefly those 
afforded by the animal propensities : in other words, their ex- 
istence is too little rational; they are organised machines more 
than moral, religious, and intellectual beings. The chief duty 
performed by their higher faculties is not to afford predomi- 
nant sources of enjoyment, but to communicate so much in- 
telligence and honesty, as to enable them to execute their 
labours with fidelity and skill. I mean no disrespect to this 
most deserving portion of society : on the contrary, I repre- 
sent their condition in what appears to me to be its true light, 
only with a view to excite them to amend it. I speak, of 
course, of the great body of the uneducated people : There 
are among the labouring classes many individuals, who pos- 
sess high attainments. 

Does human nature, then, admit of the adoption of such 
habits and employments by these classes, as will tend to raise 
them to the condition of beings whose chief pleasures shall be 
derived from their rational natures ? — that is, creatures whose 
bodily powers and animal propensities shall be subservient to 
their moral and intellectual faculties, and who shall derive from 
the latter their leading enjoyments \ To attain this end, it 
would not be necessary that they should cease to labour ; on 
the contrary, the necessity of labour to the enjoyment of life 
is imprinted in strong characters on the structure of man. 
The osseous, muscular, and nervous systems of the body, all 
demand exercise as a condition of health ; while the digestive 
and sanguiferous apparatus rapidly fall into disorder if due 
exertion be neglected. Exercise of the body is labour ; and 
labour directed to a useful purpose is as beneficial to the cor- 
poreal organs, and far more pleasing to the mind, than when 
undertaken for no end but the preservation of health. 

Commerce is rendered advantageous by the Creator ; be- 
cause different climates yield different productions. Agricul- 
ture, manufactures, and commerce, therefore, are adapted to 
man's nature, and I am not their enemy. But they are not 
the ends of human existence, even on earth. Labour is be- 
neficial to the whole human economy, and it is a mere delu- 
sion to regard it as in itself an evil ; but the great principle 
is, that it must be moderate both in quantity and duration, in 
order that men may enjoy, and not be oppressed, by it. I say 



26 LIMITATION OF LABOUR . 

enjoy it ; because moderate exertion is pleasure, and it has 
been only labour carried to excess, which has given rise to 
the common opinion, that retirement from active industry is 
the goal of happiness. 

It may be objected that a healthy and vigorous man is not 
oppressed by ten or twelve hours labour a -day ; and I grant 
that, if he be well fed, his strength may not be so much ex- 
hausted by this exertion as to cause him pain. JBut this is 
regarding him merely as a working animal. My proposition 
is, that after ten or twelve hours of muscular exertion a-day, 
continued for six days in the week, the labourer is not in a fit 
condition for that active exercise of his religious, moral, and 
intellectual faculties which becomes him as a rational being. 
The activity of these powers depends on the condition of the 
brain and nervous system ; and these organs are exhausted 
and deadened by too much muscular exertion . The fox-hunter 
and ploughman fall asleep when they sit and attempt to read 
or think. The truth of this proposition is demonstrable on 
physiological principles, and is supported by general expe- 
rience ; nevertheless, the teachers of mankind have too often 
neglected it. The first change, therefore, which is to be de- 
sired is, to limit the hours of labour, and to dedicate a por- 
of time daily to the exercise of the mental faculties. 

The same means will lead to the realisation of practical 
Christianity. An individual whose active existence is en- 
grossed by mere bodily labour, or by the pursuits of gain or 
ambition, lives under the predominance of faculties that do 
not produce the perfect Christian character. The true prac- 
tical Christian possesses a vigorous and enlightened intellect, 
and moral affections glowing with gratitude to God and love 
to man ; but how can the people at large be enabled to realise 
this condition of mind, if stimulus for the intellect and the 
nobler sentiments be excluded by the daily routine of their 
occupations ? 

The uneducated and untrained labourer is not only igno- 
rant, but his mental organs, through want of exercise, are 
dull, feeble, and incapable of thinking continuously, or acting 
perseveringly. We may give him instruction, but it does 
not penetrate into his inactive brain, and it is not reproduc- 
tive of thought and action. 

The middle classes have long since arrived at the convic- 
tion, that this country presents to them a theatre for exer- 
tion, in which, as a general rule, the prizes of wealth and 
social consideration fall to the share of those individuals who 
display the greatest amount of activity, directed by intelli- 



LIMITATION OF LABOUR. 27 

gence and morality to useful or pleasing objects. The ex- 
traordinary efforts which they make to train up their children 
in habits of activity and perseverance, shew how deeply they 
are penetrated by this truth. Their children are sent to 
school at five or six years of age, and from that age to fifteen 
or sixteen, in some cases till eighteen or twenty, they are 
subjected to mental exercises during six or eight hours a-day. 
It is not so much the knowledge as the habits of mental ac- 
tivity and perseverance acquired by this discipline that en- 
ables those children, in after life, to appropriate the prizes 
to themselves. They do not rob the working classes of them, 
as somepersons maintain ; because, by the order of Providence, 
the prizes could not exist unless there were intelligence, 
powers of combination, capital acquired by industry and ac- 
cumulated by prudence and economy, to produce them ; and 
it is the superior mental training of the middle classes which 
enables them to realise these conditions of wealth. 

The children of the working classes, in localities where 
they are not protected by the factory law, or trained by parents 
who are themselves educated, are too generally sent to la- 
bour at the age of eight or nine years, and afterwards their 
mental faculties receive little or no cultivation. The conse- 
quence is, that they are not only ignorant, but, in adult age, 
they become dull and incapable of intellectual application and 
moral perseverance. The necessity which poverty imposes 
on the labouring classes of taking their children too early 
from school and employing them on labour, appears to me 
to be the greatest of all the existing obstacles to the eleva- 
tion of those classes in the social scale. If this opinion be 
well founded, the best remedy the evil admits of in the pre- 
sent condition of society, appears to be to improve and mul- 
tiply schools, and to lower the fees of them, so that not only 
none of the children of the poor may be excluded from them, 
but that the teaching and training may be so efficient as to 
render the few years of leisure which are at the command of 
the children of this class as productive of good habits and 
intellectual intelligence as possible. 

Parents who neglect the education of their children, really 
renounce for their offspring all right to the prizes offered by 
Providence to intelligence, industry, and morality, and rivet 
the chains of dependence about their necks for ever. As al- 
ready observed, wealth cannot be produced by ignorance and 
inertness ; and without a moderate command of property, in- 
dependence and social consideration cannot be attained. The 
labouring classes, therefore, in my^opinion, have no alterna- 



28 WHAT CONSTITUTES EDUCATION \ 

tive but to qualify themselves, by training and education, to 
fulfil the conditions on which Providence has made wealth and 
social well-being to depend, or to submit to poverty and de- 
pendence. 

There is a large number of working men, particularly in 
the departments of skilled labour, who are intelligent and 
moral, and who, when married to prudent and active women, 
live in comfort, and bring up their children with much re- 
spectability. This class will be able to trace their own ad- 
vantageous position to good natural endowments, strength- 
ened and rendered practical by education, example, or other 
influences tending to give the ascendency to their moral and 
intellectual faculties. If, therefore, they desire, not only to 
transmit their own condition to their children, but to promote 
their elevation in the social scale, they will prize well- 
constituted schools as the best of all means for accomplish- 
ing these ends. 

The question naturally presents itself — What constitutes 
a good education \ The answer will be found by attending 
to the distinction between means and an end. If an architect 
be employed to build a house, he first prepares a plan, and then 
calls in the aid of practical workmen, to combine his materials 
into the proposed erection. The plan is merely a means to- 
wards the end. To be able to produce a plan, characterised 
at once by taste, elegance, and commodious arrangement, the 
architect must have studied mathematics and drawing. He 
might invent a design by means of his intellectual faculties, 
but without some knowledge of mathematics and drawing he 
could not reduce it into a practical form. The plan itself, 
however, is still only a methodised outline of the proposed 
object. Materials must be acquired and combined, in con- 
formity with the design, before a house can be called into ex- 
istence. 

Now, drawing and mathematics are admirable attainments 
viewed as means towards accomplishing useful or pleasing 
ends ; but if they produce nothing but themselves ; or if they 
produce only plans, pleasing to the fancy, but not applicable 
to purposes of utility, they must be viewed as mere ingenious 
recreations or elegant accomplishments. 

What mathematics, drawing, and plans are to practical 
house-building, — languages, writing, and arithmetic, are to 
practical business. They are means of acquiring and commu- 
nicating knowledge. Moreover, knowledge itself, like the 
plan, is only a means of attaining useful and pleasing ends. 
Indeed, I might go farther, and say that drawing and mathe- 



WHAT CONSTITUTES EDUCATION \ 29 

matics delineate forms and deal with proportions ; whereas 
language, apart from its applications, is a collection of mere 
unmeaning arbitrary sounds. To limit the education of an in- 
dividual who is destined to act the part of a husband, father, 
and member of society, to reading, writing, accounts, and the 
dead languages, would be similar to arresting the education 
of an architect at drawing, mathematics, and designing, 
without teaching him the kinds, strength, durability, cost, 
and modes of arrangement of the materials necessary for 
building. A person who could draw a plan of a handsome cot- 
tage, might be incapable of rearing a fabric corresponding to 
it, if he were defective in all the practical skill, knowledge, 
and experience, which are indispensable to convert the design 
into an actual house. For a similar reason, a man may be a 
distinguished scholar in Greek and Latin without being there- 
by rendered a practical man of business, if he be not in- 
structed in the knowledge of affairs, As, however, the archi- 
tect must begin by learning to draw, so the practical mem- 
ber of society should commence his education by studying the 
means of acquiring practical knowledge ; and I proceed to 
inquire what these means are. 

The English language, writing, and arithmetic, then, are 
important means of acquiring and communicating knowledge. 
They should be sedulously taught, and by the most approved 
methods. Algebra and pure mathematics also belong to the 
class of means. The former embraces only numbers and 
their relations ; the latter, space and its proportions. The 
most profound knowledge of these subjects, however, is com- 
patible with extensive ignorance concerning every object, 
topic, and relation, that does not essentially imply exact pro- 
portions of number and space. All languages, likewise, be- 
long to the class of means. In preferring one to another, 
we should be guided by the principle of utility ; — that lan- 
guage in which most knowledge is contained is most useful. 
For this reason, French, German, and Italian, appear to me 
to be more valuable acquirements than Greek and Latin. 

One great object of education is the attainment of know- 
ledge itself. 

If the season for obtaining real knowledge be dedicated to 
the study of languages, the individual will enter on active 
life in a state of qualification for practical business, similar 
to that of a man for the practice of architecture, who should 
have completed only his studies in drawing. He will be defi- 
cient in many acquirements that would be substantially useful 
for the preservation of health and the successful conducting 



30 WHAT CONSTITUTES EDUCATION % 

of affairs. He will know nothing about the structure of his 
own body, and very little about the causes which support it 
in health, or subject it to disease : he will be very imperfectly 
informed concerning the constitution of his own mind, and 
the relations established between himself and other beings : 
he will not be instructed in any science ; know nothing of the 
principles of trade ; be profoundly ignorant of the laws of his 
country, which he will be called on to obey or even to admi- 
nister ; in short, he will be sent into society with little other 
preparation than a stock of prejudices gathered from the 
nursery, and of vague imaginations about the greatness of 
Greece and Rome, the beauties of classical literature, and 
the vast superiority of learned pedantry over practical sense. 

To discover the evils that arise from this misdirection of 
education, we have only to advert to the numerous cases of 
individuals who sap their constitutions, and die in youth or 
middle age, not from the fury of ungovernable passions which 
knowledge could not subdue, but from sheer ignorance of the 
physical conditions necessary to health ; — or to the ruined 
fortunes and broken hearts also referrible to the ignorance 
of individuals, of their own incapacity for the business in 
which they have embarked,- — of the characters of those with 
whom they have connected themselves, — of the natural laws 
which govern production, or of the civil laws which regulate 
the transactions of men in particular states ; — and to ask, 
how many of these calamities might have been avoided by in- 
struction and by proper discipline of the mind in the fields 
of observation and reflection I 

To understand what constitutes useful and practical know- 
ledge, you are requested to bear in mind the principles which 
I laid down and illustrated in the first lecture, — that every 
inanimate object and every living being have received a de- 
finite constitution from the Creator, in virtue of which each 
stands in one or other of two relations towards man : — either 
its natural qualities are such as he may bend to the purposes 
of his own enjoyment, or they are too gigantic to be subjected 
to his control, and he must accommodate his conduct to their 
sway. Water may be pointed to as an example of the first 
class : Man, as I formerly observed, may turn the roaring 
torrent from its course, ere it dashes over the mountain-cliff, 
and conduct it, as his humble slave, to his mill, where it may 
be made to grind his corn, weave his cloth, forge his iron, or 
spin his thread, according to the direction given to it by his 
skill : or he may enclose water in strong metallic boilers, convert 
it into steam, and employ its powers to propel his ship, in the 



WHAT CONSTITUTES EDUCATION I 31 

face of the stormy winds and waves, to any wished-for haven : 
or he may, by the same means, almost fly along fields and mea- 
dows on the smooth lines of his artificial railway. But before 
he can command these high enjoyments, how minute and accu- 
rate must be his study of water and the changes which it 
may be made to undergo, and the latent powers which it may 
be forced to develop ! how deeply skilled must he become in 
mechanical philosophy and its applications ! and how com- 
plicated and admirable must be his combinations of nature's 
rude materials ! 

Wind affords an instance of the powers which man cannot 
control, but to which he may accommodate his conduct. He 
cannot guide the air as he does the stream ; but he may give 
to his mill-house a revolving top, so that let the wind blow 
from what point it listeth, his sails shall spread their bosoms 
directly to the breeze. He cannot bid the air measure its 
motions to suit his objects, according as he wishes to saw 
the slender pine, or to crush into dust a mass of flint ; but 
he may spread his canvas to the gale in proportion to the 
power required, so that the wind, if impetuous, shall press a 
contracted surface, and, if gently blowing, shall be caught 
by a broad expanded sail. Man has no power over the di- 
rection of the wind on the ocean : but by the skilful adapta- 
tion of the helm, masts, and sails, he may steer to his 
destined haven. How. much of observation, how much of 
skilful combination, and how much of practical adaptation of 
the powers which man can wield, to those which defy his 
control, must be put forth before these glorious triumphs of 
his ingenuity can be accomplished ! 

These illustrations are of general application. In common 
life we may never need to forge, to weave, to steer, or to spin ; 
but we must all prosecute some vocation of usefulness and 
duty, otherwise we exist in vain. In whatever sphere of life 
we move, we are encompassed by the elements of nature, 
which minister to our health and enjoyment, or to our detri- 
ment and discomfort, according as we use them wisely or 
the reverse, according as we adapt our conduct to their real 
qualities or run counter to their influence. We are sur- 
rounded by human beings, and are influenced by the great 
tides of public affairs ; and without knowledge of external 
nature, and of the nature of man, his history, laws, and in- 
stiutions, we shall be no more capable of acting well and 
wisely our parts through life, than is the mariner of steer- 
ing successfully without helm, compass, or chart, through the 
ocean. 

If there be any degree of truth in the views now pro- 
pounded, the question, "What should secular education em- 



32 WHAT CONSTITUTES EDUCATION I 

brace V may be easily answered. It should embrace instruc- 
tion in the qualities, modes of action, relations, and purposes 
of the things and beings by means of which the government 
of the world is maintained ; and also training of the whole 
faculties, animal, moral, and intellectual, to action in confor- 
mity with the order of Providence, 

The particular branches of instruction should be the fol- 
lowing : — 

Reading and Writing, as the means of acquiring, record- 
ing, and communicating knowledge. 

Arithmetic, Algebra, and Geometry, as instruments 
of numeration and calculation. 

Geography. The object of this science is to describe the 
natural and artificial boundaries of the different countries of 
the world, and their sub-divisions ; also to enumerate the 
towns, rivers, lakes, &c, which they contain. With these 
should be combined a description of the inhabitants, institu- 
tions, soil, climate, and produce of each country, and the 
relations of these to the objects and beings of other coun- 
tries. Simple descriptive Geography addresses chiefly the 
intellectual faculties of Form, Size, and Locality : When en- 
riched by the additions now mentioned, the science would 
interest the feelings and excite the reflecting powers. 

Natural History embraces the description of all the 
objects of the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. In 
teaching it, the young should be trained to accurate observa- 
tion of objects, and of their qualities, relations, and modes of 
action. 

Chemistry. This science expounds the minute composi- 
tion of natural objects, and the proportions and laws of com- 
bination of their parts, with their modes of action. It affords 
striking examples of design, order, and invariable sequence, 
in the constitution and modes of action of material objects ; 
and may be used to demonstrate to the young that the mate- 
rial world is actually and practically governed by Divine 
wisdom. 

Anatomy and Physiology. These sciences unfold the 
structure, functions, relations and laws of the different parts 
of which organised bodies are composed. When to these ele- 
ments of instruction is added information concerning the 
external circumstances, and also the modes and degrees of 
action of the organs, which produce health and disease, and 
the certain connection between infringements of these condi- 
tions, and pain and suffering, and eventually premature death ; 
the pupil may be led to comprehend that his health and life 
are. within certain limits, emnniittcd to his own discretion. 



WHAT CONSTITUTES EDUCATION % 33 

and that the Divine power is constantly operating in and 
through his organs for his advantage and enjoyment, while 
he acts in conformity with the laws of his constitution. 

Natural Philosophy treats of the qualities, relations, 
and modes and laws of action of bodies, apart from their 
chemical and vital phenomena. Like chemistry and physio- 
logy, it addresses in an especial manner the reflecting intel- 
lect of man, and is calculated to expand his mental powers. 
By increasing his knowledge of the scheme of creation, it 
puts it in his power, to a certain extent, to co-operate in the 
plans of Providence for his own improvement. 

The Philosophy of Mind. The objects of this science 
are the external senses, and the internal faculties of emotion, 
observation, and reflection. It can be studied successfully 
only by means of reflection on consciousness, and observation 
of the organs of the several faculties, and the influence of their 
size, age, health, disease, and training, on the mental mani- 
festations. The mind of man, in so far as he is concerned, 
forms the centre to which the objects of all the other sciences 
are related ; and his deepest interest is involved in knowing 
accurately what these relations are, and how he may regulate 
his conduct in conformity with them. 

Literature, Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, and all the 
useful and ornamental arts, find their principles in the con- 
stitution of the human faculties, and their relations to the ob- 
jects of external nature, and cannot be thoroughly and scien- 
tifically understood until these are comprehended. 

Natural Religion belongs to Secular Education, and 
should aim at teaching the young to comprehend that the 
whole objects and phenomena treated of in the sciences, are 
the institutions of God ; that the relations of the human mind 
and body towards them are fixed and unalterable ; that the 
wdiole are, to a certain extent, cognisable by the human fa- 
culties ; and that we are bound by duty to God, as well by a 
regard to our own welfare, reverently and diligently to study 
these, and to regulate our own conduct in conformity to their 
modes of action. Above all, the pupil should be trained ha- 
bitually to acton, the knowledge thus communicated to him.* 

I do not mean that all the arts and sciences should be 
taught to every child, in the manner and to the extent in 
which they are now expounded in our universities and higher 
seminaries of education. For the industrious portions of 
the people, it is not necessary to teach these sciences in mi- 

* See Pamphlet on the question "What should Secular Education Em- 
brace ?" p. 31. 



34 EDUCATION IN AMERICA AND PRUSSIA. 

nute detail. Elementary instruction, by means of primary 
schools, and, at a later age, by popular lectures elucidating 
their leading principles and applications, would be of incal- 
culable benefit. In many of the United States of North 
America, the country is divided into school districts, and 
taxed for the support of schools, which, under the manage- 
ment of committees chosen by the rate-payers, provide edu- 
cation for the children of the whole people, free of farther 
expense.* In Lancashire, in England/a " Plan" for provid- 
ing secular education to the people, similar to that adopted 
in the United States, is now (1848) engaging public atten- 
tion. Prussia also has set a noble example to Europe on the 
subject of education. In Prussia, t as in Germany generally, 
it is obligatory on all parents to send their children to school 
from the age of seven to fourteen, beginning earlier if they 
choose ; and the duty is enforced by penalties. Each parish 
is bound to support an elementary school ; each considerable 
town, a burgh school for the more advanced studies ; each 
considerable district, a gymnasium for classical studies ; and 
each province has its university. The parish school is sup- 
ported by the parish, and for its management all the land- 
holders and heads of families are formed into a union, which 
appoints a committee to inspect and watch over the school. 
The system of instruction is prescribed by authority, and is 
nearly uniform for the whole monarchy. It embraces, in the 
elementary schools, 1. Religion and morals ; 2. The German 
tongue ; 3. Elements of geometry and drawing ; 4. Arith- 
metic, pure and applied ; 5. The elements of physics (mean- 
ing chemistry and natural philosophy), general history, and 
the history of Prussia ; 6. Singing ; 7. Writing ; 8. Gym- 
nastic exercises ; 9. " The more simple manual labours," by • 
which seems to be meant the use of tools employed in the 
most common occupations, such as the spade, pick-axe, saw, 
plane, file, trowel, stone-chisel, &c. The burgher school em- 
braces the same branches carried farther, with the addition 
of a little Latin, the study of which is not, however, univer- 
sally enforced. The instruction is not gratuitous, except to 
the- poor. The provision to be made by the parish embraces, 
1st, A salary to the schoolmaster, with a retired allowance 
for him in old age ; 2d, A schoolhouse, well aired and heated ; 
3d, Books, maps, models for drawing, collections in natural 
history, gymnastic apparatus, &c. ; 4///, Aid to poor scholars. 
The fund is raised by contributions, levied on the inhabitants 
according to the amount of their property or the produce of 

* Sec Article on '' Education in America. '" in the Edinburgh Review, jS'o. 
148, July 1841. t Kdinburgh Review, No. 116. 



EDUCATION IN PRUSSIA. 35 

their industry, and by moderate fees, which are not paid to 
the schoolmaster, but to tlfe parochial managers. There are 
cantonal courts, and inspectors, who control and inspect all 
the schools in a canton ; others for departments, with a wider 
authority ; others, with still more extensive powers, for the 
provinces ; and, above all, there is the minister of public in- 
struction. In all the courts, councils, or commissions, exer- 
cising authority over the schools of any class, there are a few 
of the clergy, — Protestant and Catholic being admitted ac- 
cording as the scholars belong to the one or the other church : 
and great care is taken to prevent the slightest offence being 
offered to the religious feelings of any party. The choice of 
the books in the elementary schools is left to the local com- 
mittees. There are half-yearly examinations ; and the boys 
leaving school obtain certificates of their capacity and their 
moral and religious dispositions, which must be produced 
when they go to the communion, or enter into apprentice- 
ship or service. The Prussian plan embraces also what are 
of essential importance, schools for training persons to act 
as teachers. There are thirty-four of these seminaries, where, 
besides studying the different branches of knowledge to be 
taught, the pupils learn also the art of instruction. 

A similar system of education is pursued in the boarding- 
schools of Germany. The following letter, written by a 
young gentleman who is personally known to me, and who, 
after studying at the High School of Edinburgh, went to Cas- 
sel and Gottingen, is lively and instructive. 

" In Germany, as in England, boarding-schools are the prin- 
cipal seminaries of education, day-schools like those which we 
have in Edinburgh, being seldom if ever met with. These 
boarding-schools are attended, not only by the boys who re- 
side with the teacher, but also by what are called day-boar- 
ders ; and masters for drawing, dancing, music, and other orna- 
mental and useful accomplishments, teach at stated hours, as 
in similar establishments in this country. There are in Ger- 
many no such institutions as our High School, where almost 
nothing but Latin is taught ; and indeed no one thinks of 
learning Latin, except those who are intended for the learned 
professions, and who absolutely require a knowledge of it. 
Thus, boys in general, instead of spending five or six years 
in a state of misery, are enabled to acquire an extensive stock 
of useful and practical information. 

" In German boarding-schools, natural history is a promi- 
nent object of pursuit, and the boys are instructed in the out- 
lines of zoology, ornithology, entomology, and mineralogy. 
This, I believe, is a branch of education never taught in 



3G EDUCATION IN PRUSSIA. 

seminaries of the same description in Britain ; but it is de- 
voured by the learners on the Continent with the utmost avi- 
dity. There, the teacher is not an object of fear, but the friend 
of his pupils. He takes them, about once a fortnight, to visit 
some manufactory in the neighbourhood, where they are ge- 
nerally received with kindness, and are conveyed through the 
whole building by the owners, who seem to have pleasure in 
pointing out the uses of the various parts of the machinery, 
and in explaining to their juvenile visitors the different ope- 
rations which are carried on. Suppose, for example, that an 
expedition is undertaken to a paper-mill : the boys begin their 
scrutiny by inspecting the rags in the condition in which they 
are first brought in ; then they are made to remark the pro- 
cesses of cutting them, of forming the paste, of sizing the 
paper, &c, with the machinery by which all this is executed. 
On their return, they are required to write out an account of 
the manufactory, of the operations performed in it, and of the 
manufactured article. 

" During the summer months, pedestrian excursions are 
undertaken, extending to a period of perhaps two, three, or 
four weeks. Everything worthy of attention is pointed out 
to the boys as they go along ; and deviations are made on all 
sides, for the purpose of inspecting every manufactory, old 
castle, and other remarkable object in the neighbourhood. 
Minerals, plants, and insects, are collected as they proceed, 
and thus they early begin to appreciate and enjoy the beau- 
ties of external nature. If they happen to be travelling in 
the mountainous districts of the Harts, they descend into the 
mines, and see the methods of excavating the ore, working 
the shafts, and ventilating and draining the mine. Ascend- 
ing again to the surface, they become acquainted with the 
machinery by which the minerals are brought up, the pro- 
cesses of separating the ore from the sulphur and the silver 
from the lead, and the mode in which the former metal is 
coined into money. 

"Having become familiar with these operations, the boys 
next, perhaps, visit the iron-works ; and here a new scene of 
gratification is opened up to their faculties. The furnaces, 
the principles of the different kinds of bellows, the method of 
casting the iron and forming the moulds, — everything, in 
short, is presented to their senses, and fully expounded to 
them. In like manner they are taken to the salt-works, and 
manufactories of porcelain, 2'lass, acids, alkalies, and other 
chemical bodies, with which that part of Germany abounds. 
If any mineral springs be in the neighbourhood, these are 
visited, and the nature and properties of the water explained. 



EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 37 

In short, no opportunity is neglected, by which additions to 
their knowledge may be made. In this way, I may say with- 
out exaggeration, they acquire, in the course of a single fore- 
noon, a greater amount of useful, practical, and entertaining 
knowledge, than they could obtain in six months at a gram- 
mar-school. For my own part, at least, I learned more in 
one year at Cassel, than during the five preceding which 
were spent in Edinburgh. This knowledge, too, is of a kind 
that remains indelibly written on the memory, and that is 
often recalled in after life, with pleasure and satisfaction. 
How different were my feelings, when thus employed, from 
those which tormented me in that place of misery, the High 
School of Edinburgh I* 

" These journeys not only have a beneficial effect on the 
the mind, but also conduce, in no small degree, to the growth 
and consolidation of the body. They are performed by short 
and easy stages, so as not to occasion fatigue. 

" On their return home, the boys write an account of their 
travels, in which they describe the nature of the country 
through which they have passed, and its various productions, 
minerals, and manufactures. This is corrected and improved 
by the teacher. The minerals and plants which have been 
collected, serve at school to illustrate the lessons. The boys 
likewise go through a regular course of study, and receive 
lessons on Religion, Geography, French, and the Elements of 
Geometry. They are taught also the Elements of Astronomy ; 
not merely the abstract particulars generally given in courses 
of geography in this country, relative to the moon's distance, 
the diameter and period of revolution of the earth, and the 
like, but also the relative positions of the principal constella- 
tions. The figures of cubes, cones, octagons, pyramids, and 
other geometrical figures, are impressed upon the minds of 
the junior boys, by pieces of wood, cut into the proper shapes. 
Latin is taught to those who particularly desire it. Poles 

* This letter was inserted in No. XXX. of the Phrenological Journal, and 
the Editor (not myself) here subjoins the following note : " Our correspondent's 
language is strong ; but as we know it to be nothing more than the expression 
of honest and heartfelt indignation, we have allowed it to remain unmodified. 
We ourselves can never forget the tcedium vitce which attended us, during the 
lingering years in which we made a strenuous but unsuccessful attempt to over- 
come the difficulties of Latin Syntax at the High School of Edinburgh. Often 
did we envy the condition of boys who laboured in the field for a scanty sub- 
sistence, but whose minds were free from the intolerable and spirit-breaking 
incubus of Latin grammar." Jt is proper to add, that, in another seminary and 
at college, the writer of this note subsequently attained considerable proficiency 
in classical literature, and is an admirer of it : circumstances, however, which 
do not prevent him from concurring in the views expressed in these lectures 



38 EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 

are erected in the garden for gymnastics, and the boys re- 
ceive every encouragement to take muscular exercise. 

" Now, this method of education seems to me — indeed I 
know experimentally that it is — so vastly superior to that 
which is in vogue in Edinburgh, that I can never cease to 
wonder that the barbarisms of the dark ages should still be 
allowed to exert their influence among us. In Germany, the 
boys enter the schools which I have described, at the age of 
eight or nine, and leave them when about fourteen or fifteen, 
at which period those intended for the learned professions 
enter the lyceums, preparatory to enrolling their names at 
the universities. Now, whether is it more rational for a hoy, 
at that period of life, to consume his valuable time in the 
dreary halls of the High School,* in acquiring scarcely one 
useful idea, or to employ it in the pursuit of substantial know- 
ledge X For my own part, I shall always look back on the 
time which I spent in obtaining a superficial acquaintance 
with the Latin tongue as a hideous blank in my existence." 

In this country we have not enjoyed the preparatory train- 
ing which fits the poorest peasant in Prussia for relishing in- 
struction in the higher branches of science ; and not only has 
education in useful knowledge been neglected, but prejudices 
are entertained by many excellent persons against it. Dr 
Drummondt has furnished an admirable answer to this ob- 
jection. The passage is long, but its excellence is my apo- 
logy for introducing it. 

" You will, perhaps," says he, " treat the idea of teaching- 
matters of science to people generally as chimerical ; but be 
not over hasty. It is still too common a persuasion that 
knowledge should be a monopoly, belonging solely to the 
learned and highly educated ; but there is a vast fund of in- 
formation of the very highest value, which can be understood 
by persons who have had but little previous tutoring, either 
in school or university. There is a vast mass of knowledge 
which admits of easy explanation, and which could be com- 
prehended by men of the most moderate education ; and why 
is it withheld from them ? Is the sun still to shine in the 
heavens, the planets to roll on in their orbits, the comets to 
shoot beyond imagination's wing into the regions of space, 

* Since the publication of the first edition of these lectures, the course of 
education given at the High School (if Edinburgh has been improved ; but still 
too little provision is made in it by the Patrons for teaching the elements of 
physical science. 

t See (lie excellent and eloquent ''Letters to a Young Naturalist on the Study 
of Nature and Natural Theology. By .lames L. Pyummond, JU.P.," &c. Long- 
man & Co., London, 12mo, pp. 342. 



EDUCATION IN SCIENCE. 39 

and the constellations to sparkle for ever on the canopy of 
night ; and yet our brethren of the human race, a very small 
portion excepted, to know no more about them than merely 
that they are the sun and stars ? 

" Will it be said that the great truths of astronomy can 
only be made plain to the understandings of those who are 
profound mathematicians and philosophers % There are 
lengths in every science, indeed, which can only be gained by 
long and deep study ; but although it required a Newton to 
unfold the mystery of the planetary motions, as guided and 
controlled by the law of gravitation, still these motions, and 
most of the sublime facts of astronomy, can be comprehended 
by the bulk of the people, from plain illustrations, given in 
plain and perspicuous language. But of this, and of nature 
in general, they are kept in deep ignorance. Simple truths, 
when simply explained, are more easily comprehended, I be- 
lieve, than is commonly supposed ; and I feel satisfied that the 
task of teaching mankind in general such solid and various 
knowledge as would tend most powerfully to advance both 
civilization and morality, is any thing but hopeless. Know- 
ledge has been truly said by Bacon to be power ; and with 
equal, at least, if not greater truth, it may be asserted, that, 
when pursued with a reference to the God of all knowledge, 
it is virtue." — " There is no limit to the study of the Al- 
mighty in his works. All nature, from the north to the south, 
and from the east to the west, offers examples innumerable 
of the power and wisdom with which he works throughout 
the visible world before us. In the heavens we find suns the 
centre of systems, and an endless series of rolling worlds ; 
and when we descend from the consideration of suns and sys- 
tems, — of stars wheeling in their orbits with a velocity quicker 
than thought, — of worlds, compared with which the globe we 
inhabit is in magnitude as a mole-hill, — how delightful is it 
to find, that on this ball, insignificant as it is in comparison 
with thousands of the heavenly orbs, the God of all displays 
himself in characters not less strong, to the inquiring mind, 
than in the boundless ocean of space that holds the sun and 
stars ! 

" Let us consider an insect, or let us study the laws which 
direct a planet ; let us contemplate the solar system, or in- 
quire into the history of an ant-hill or a honey -comb ; the mind, 
the truly valuable portion of the compound called Man, re- 
cognises in the vast, as well as in the minute, and vice versa, 
the master Mind, the God, the omnipotent power — express 
it by what name we will — which formed and which governs 
the mighty whole, in all its magnitudes, in all its minima. 



40 EDUCATION IN SCIENCE. 

Paley observes in his Natural Theology, — a work which I 
can never too highly recommend to your notice, — that ' the 
works of nature want only to be contemplated. When con- 
templated, they have everything in them which can astonish 
by their greatness : for, of the vast scale of operation through 
which our discoveries carry us, at one end we see an Intel- 
ligent Power arranging planetary systems — fixing, for in- 
stance, the trajectory of Saturn, or constructing a ring of 
200,000 miles diameter, to surround his body, and be sus- 
pended like a magnificent arch over the heads of his inhabi- 
tants ; and, at the other, bending a hooked tooth, concerting 
and providing an appropriate mechanism for the clasping 
and reclasping of the filaments of the feather of the hum- 
ming-bird ! We have proof, not only of both these works 
proceeding from an intelligent agent, but of their proceeding 
from the same agent : for, in the first place, we can trace 
an identity of plan, a connection of system, from Saturn to 
our own globe ; and when arrived upon our globe, we can, 
in the second place, pursue the connection through all the 
organised, especially the animated, bodies which it supports. 
We can observe marks of a common relation, as well to one 
another, as to the elements of which their habitation is com- 
posed. Therefore, one mind hath planned, or at least hath 
prescribed, a general plan for all these productions. One 
Being has been concerned in all.' " 

Knowledge of man himself, his mental endowments, his his- 
tory,and his institutions, belongs to the class of useful informa- 
tion. As already mentioned, a useful education should em- 
brace instruction in mental philosophy, geography, civil his- 
tory, political economy, and religion. A genius or taste for 
poetry, music, painting, sculpture, or languages, is bestowed 
by nature on particular individuals, and these branches of 
knowledge should be taught to those who have an aptitude for 
them. They are of much value as means of elevating and 
refining human nature ; but unless there be in the mind a 
decided talent for them, they should not be made the great 
objects of education, or the business of life. I request you 
particularly to observe, that I do not denounce the ancient 
languages and classical literature on their own account, or 
desire to see them cast into utter oblivion. I admit them to 
be refined studies, and think that there are individuals who, 
having a natural turn for them, learn them easily, and enjoy 
them much. They ought, therefore, to be cultivated by all 
such persons. My objection is solely to the practice of ren- 
dering them the main substance of the education bestow- 
ed on young men who have no taste or talent for them, and 



TRAINING. 41 

whose pursuit in life will not render a knowledge of them a 
valuable acquisition. The fine arts, also, should be taught as 
enjoyments, and a relish for them encouraged; but in com- 
mon minds a considerable amount of moral and intellectual 
cultivation must precede their due appreciation. 

Farther, as long as the present institutions of society ex- 
ist, some knowledge of Greek and Latin is indispensable to 
young men who mean to pursue medicine or law, as a pro- 
fession. Of course, Greek must be studied by divines. 

The importance of teaching knowledge is evident; but 
the necessity for training is less understood. It arises from 
the dependence of the mind, in this world, on physical organ- 
isation for its powers of acting. The brain is the ma- 
terial instrument by means of which the mind acts, and it 
consists of a variety of parts, each connected with a special 
mental power. It is subject to the same organic laws as 
the other parts of the body. If we should confine a man for 
the first twenty years of his life in a dungeon, without exer- 
cise and employment, we should find, on bringing him into 
the active world of light and life, that he could not see dis- 
tinctly, could not judge correctly of the distance of objects 
by their sounds, could not walk steadily, and scarcely could 
make any exertion with his arms and hands. The cause of 
his defects would be found in the circumstance, that his 
organic structure had been left feeble and undeveloped 
through want of exercise ; and that his various senses and 
muscles (which, although distinct in themselves, are all 
framed to co-operate and assist in prosecuting general aims) 
had never been accustomed to act in combination. Such a 
being, when first introduced into active life, would be help- 
less, bewildered, and unhappy. 

There is, therefore, a vast difference between instruction 
and training ; and education should embrace both. In- 
struction means communicating knowledge ; while training- 
implies the repetition of certain modes of action in the mind 
and body until they have become habits. It is a law of our 
constitution that any organ, when accustomed to repeat fre- 
quently its action, acquires additional strength and facility 
in doing so ; and the force and advantages of habit arise from 
this law. If we merely tell a pupil how to point his toes, and 
place his feet, and what series of movements to execute, this 
is instructing him in dancing ; but it is not training him to 
the practice of the art. To accomplish the latter object, we 
must teach him actively to dance ; and the more frequently 
we cause him to repeat certain movements, short of occasion- 
ing fatigue, the more expert will he become in performing 



42 EDUCATION m SCIENCE. 

them. In like manner, mere information concerning natural 
objects, their agencies, and relations, is instruction ; while 
accustoming children to observe, to discriminate, to arrange, 
to operate, and to reason for themselves, is training their un 
derstandings. 

Teaching a child to repeat the precepts and doctrines of 
the New Testament is instructing him in religion and mo- 
rality ; but he is not trained to religion and morality until he 
shall have been accustomed to practise these precepts in his 
daily conduct.* 

The Scripture says, Train up a child in the way in which 
he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it ; 
but it does not promise the same result from merely instruc- 
ting him : In this respect scripture and nature completely 
agree. f 



* In the Normal School of the Free Church of Glasgow, training is practi- 
cally employed with the happiest effects. An excellent exposition of the me- 
thod adopted in that seminary is given by David Stow, Esq., in his work on 
" The Training System."' 

f Since the first edition of these Lectures was published, several high autho- 
rities in classical literature have admitted the inexpediency of wasting from four 
to six years of the time of young men destined to merchandise or manufacture 
in studying Greek and Latin. Professor Pillans says : — 

" The strongest case against the advocates for classical education, is the prac- 
tice that has hitherto prevailed of making it so general, as to include boys of 
whom it is known beforehand that they are to engage in the ordinary pursuits 
of trade and commerce ; who are not intended to prosecute their education far- 
ther than school, and arc not therefore likely to follow out the subject of their 
previous studies much, or at all, beyond the period of their attendance here. 

" I willingly allow, and have already admitted, that a youth who looks for- 
ward from the very outset to the practice of some mechanical or even purely 
scientific art, may employ his time better, in acquiring manual dexterity and 
mathematical knowledge, than in making himself perfectly acquainted with a 
dead language. There must be in all very large and populous towns, a class 
of persons in tolerably easy circumstances, and whose daily business affords 
them considerable leisure, but who contemplate for their children nothing be- 
yond such acquirements as shall enable them to follow out the gainful occupa- 
tion, and move in the narrow circle, in which they themselves, and their fathers 
before them, have spent a quiet and inoffensive life. It was for youth of this 
sort that the Prussian government, with a sagacity and foresight characteristic 
of all its educational proceedings, provided what are called burg* r and mittel- 
schulen, — intermediate steps between the volka-echulen, or primary schools, and 
the Gymnasiai or gelehrte-ichuUn ; and the French have wisely followed the 
example of Prussia, by ordaining the establishment of ecoles moyennes, called 
also ecoles primairet superiewres, in all towns above a certain population/-* — 
Lectures on the fyoper Objects and Method of Education, <(•<-., by James Pil- 
lans, M.A., P.R.S.B., &c, 1836. 

The Edinburgh Review, in commending Professor Pillans's Lectures, 

Nothing has more contributed in this country to disparage the cause of 

aj education than the rendering it the education of all. That to many this 

education can be of little or no advantage, is a truth too manifest to be denied ; 

and on this admission the sophism is natural, to convert ' useless to many' into 



EDUCATION IN SCIENCE. 43 

It is by training alone that moral and religious instruc- 
tion can be rendered practically efficacious in regulating con- 
duct. Other conditions being equal, the human faculties act 
with a degree of energy corresponding to the size of their 
organs ; and the organs of the animal propensities are gene- 
rally large. They are, therefore, naturally powerful ; and 
not only so, but the circumstances of life present to them 
constant and powerful excitements. They are thus trained 
from infancy by our position and the influence of surrounding 
objects to activity, without the need of artificial culture. 
This is well ordered by the Creator, because the activity of 
the propensities is necessary to our subsistence, preservation, 
and defence, as individuals and as domestic beings. But the 
moral and intellectual organs, in most individuals, when com- 
bined, although equal or superior in size to those of the pro- 
pensities, stand more in need of artificial cultivation. Their 
function is to control and direct the animal feelings and de- 
sires, and they need to be instructed and strengthened them- 
selves to fit them to accomplish this duty. Instruction should 
be communicated by directly addressing and exercising the 
intellectual faculties, and training them to deal with their 
own objects. Children should be taught to examine every 
object minutely, and to mark its hardness or softness, its so- 
lidity, its form, size, weight, colour, the number of its parts, 
its place of growth or production, its liability to suffer change 
from the influence of other objects, and its powers of produ- 
cing changes in them. They should be taught to try experi- 
ments and note the consequences, and be trained to perceive 
and comprehend that life is a series of processes, each of 
which has an inevitable consequence of good or evil attached 
to it, which they cannot alter or evade, but to which they 
may, within certain limits, accommodate their own conduct 
and position. This would constitute training of the intellec- 
tual faculties. 

The moral and religious faculties also, are best trained by 
presenting to them their natural objects, and engaging them 
in active emotion. When a child is led to relieve suffering, to 
do a kind or courteous action, its benevolence is brought into 
activity. When it is engaged in contemplation of God's 
power, wisdom, and goodness, and taught to yield obedience 
to His will, and to obey His laws, its veneration is cultivated. 
When it is called on to scrutinise and try its own actions 

1 useful to none. With us the learned languages are at once taught too exten- 
sively, and not extensively enough, — an absurdity in which wc are now left al- 
most alone in Europe." — No. 129, vol. Ixiv., p. 123. 



44 EDUCATION IN SCIENCE. 

and those of others by the standard of justice, and to pro- 
nounce a sentence of approval or condemnation, its conscien- 
tiousness is strengthened. When beautiful objects and dulcet 
sounds are presented, and the child is taught to reproduce 
the like, its faculties of ideality, time, and tune, are trained, 
and so forth. It is only by a thorough enlightenment of the 
intellect, and a practical training of the moral and religious 
sentiments that these faculties can be enabled steadily and 
in all emergencies to control and direct the animal propen- 
sities. 

It is in society that the objects and excitements necessary 
for training the moral and religious faculties are chiefly 
found. We cannot be benevolent unless there be animated 
beings to benefit by our kindness, nor meritoriously just, un- 
less in presence of individuals whose rights conflict with our 
own desires. The play-ground and the domestic social circles, 
therefore, are the spheres in which our moral and religious 
principles should be reduced to practice ; and it is only by 
the constant exercise of them there that they can be trained 
and invigorated to accomplish the objects for which they were 
bestowed. 

Suppose, then, knowledge to be obtained, we may inquire 
into its uses. One great use of knowledge is the preservation 
of health. This, although too much overlooked in many of the 
established systems of education, is of paramount importance. 
Life depends on it, and also the power of exercising with 
effect all the mental functions. There are two modes of in- 
structing an individual in the preservation of health ; the 
one by informing him, as a matter of fact, concerning the 
conditions on which it depends, and admonishing him, by way 
of precept, to observe them ; — the other, by expounding to 
his intellect the constitution of his bodily frame, and teach- 
ing him the uses of its various parts, the abuses of them, the 
relations established between them and external objects, 
such as food, air, water, heat, and cold, and the consequences 
of observance or neglect of these relations. The former 
method addresses the memory chiefly ; the latter the judg- 
ment. The former comes home to the mind, enforced only 
by the authority of the teacher; the latter is felt to be an 
exposition of the system of nature, and deeply interests at 
once the intellect and affections. The former affords rules 
for particular cases; the latter general principles, which the 
mind can apply in all emergencies. 

The instruction here recommended implies an exposition 
of the principles of anatomy and physiology. 

Another use of knowledge is to enable us to exercise the 



USES OF KNOWLEDGE. 45 

mental faculties themselves, so as to render them vivacious 
and vigorous, and thereby to promote our usefulness and 
enjoyment. 

The wonderful effect of a change from inactivity to bustle 
and employment is- well known in ordinary life, and is ex- 
plicable only on the principle of strengthening the organs by 
a due amount of exercise. In nine cases out of ten, a visit 
to a watering-place, or a journey through an interesting 
country, restores health more by giving excitement to the 
mind than by means of the water swallowed, or the locomo- 
tion endured". And it is well known that, under strong ex- 
citement, weak and delicate persons will not only exert 
double muscular force, but even prove superior to the effects 
of miasma and contagion, to which, when unexcited, they 
would have been the first victims. In the army also, it is 
proverbial, that the time of fatigue and danger is not the 
time of disease. It is in the inactive and listless months of 
a campaign, that crow r ds of patients pass to the hospitals. 
In the former cases, it is active exercise, giving strength to 
the mind, and, through it, healthy vigour to the body, which 
produces the effect. 

Now, instruction in natural science connects our sympa- 
thies with real existences and living beings, — furnishes our 
understandings with positive and precise ideas, and brings 
home to our minds an irresistible conviction of our being 
placed in the midst of agents, physical, animal, moral, and 
intellectual, to whose qualities we must adapt our conduct, 
if we desire to enjoy life. It furnishes us with the means 
not only of planning useful occupations, but of executing our 
designs ; and in such courses of action there is the highest 
enjoyment. 

A third use of knowledge is to qualify us to perform our 
duties, physical, moral, and religious, in the best manner, 
and to reap the fullest enjoyment which providence allots to 
to those who best fulfil the objects of their existence, and 
yield the most perfect obedience to the Divine laws. In a 
pamphlet entitled, " What should Secular Education Em- 
brace V I have endeavoured to shew that a knowledge of 
the qualities, relations, and modes of action of inorganic ob- 
jects and organic beings, is a knowledge of the order of God's 
secular providence in the government of the world ; and if 
this conclusion be sound, it follows that it is only by diligent 
study of the order of nature that we shall learn how to ac- 
commodate our conduct to the Divine laws, which regulate 
prosperity and adversity, health and disease, life and death, 
in the present state of existence. 



46 ITSES OP KNOWLEDGE. 

In consequence of profound ignorance, man, in all ages, 
lias been directed in his pursuits chiefly by the impulses of his 
strongest propensities, at one time to war and conquest, 
at another to animal pleasure, and at a third to accumulating 
wealth, without having framed his habits and institutions in 
conformity with correct and enlightened views of his own 
nature, and its real interests and wants. Down to the pre- 
sent day the mass of the people, unfavourably situated for 
the development of their rational nature, have remained es- 
sentially ignorant, and liable to become the tools of interested 
leaders, or the victims of their own blind impulses. They 
constitute the great majority of the nation, and of necessity 
their condition influences that of the rest. But the arts and 
sciences are now tending towards abridging human labour, 
and promise to furnish leisure to the people ; the elements 
of useful knowledge are rapidly increasing ; the capacity of 
the operatives for instruction is generally recognised, and 
the means of communicating it are becoming more abundantj; 
so that a new era may fairly be considered as having com- 
menced. 

It has sometimes appeared to me that divines, with the 
best intentions, have obstructed the progress of human im- 
provement by colouring too highly the representations of 
man's depravity and weakness, and urging in too strong 
terms his natural incapacity for any good. These views re- 
press exertion, and foster indolence and ignorance. Dr Chal- 
mers entertained more favourable opinions of our nature, and 
I rejoice in calling your attention to the eloquence as well as 
the truth of the following remarks. " We might not know 
the reason,'' says he, in his Bridgewater Treatise, <; why, in 
the moral world, so many ages of darkness and depravity 
should have been permitted to pass by, any more than we 
know the reason why, in the natural world, the trees of a 
forest, instead of starting all at once into the full efflore- 
scence and stateliness of their manhood, have to make their 
slow and laborious advancement to maturity, cradled in 
storms, and alternately drooping or expanding with the vicis- 
situdes of the seasons. But though unable to scan all the 
cycles either of the moral or natural economy, yet we may 
recognise such influences at work, as, when multiplied and 
developed to the uttermost, are abundantly capable of rege- 
nerating the world. One of the likeliest of these influences 
is the power of education, to the perfecting of which so many 
minds are earnestly directed at this moment, and for the 
general acceptance of which in society, we have a guarantee 



IS MAN IMPROVABLE \ 47 

in the strongest affections and fondest wishes of the fathers 
and mothers of families." (Vol. i., p. 186.) 

Add to these reasons for hoping well of our nature, the 
discovery, that the capacity for civilisation may be increas- 
ed by exercising the moral and intellectual faculties, in 
conformity with the laws of organisation ; a fact which 
Phrenology brings to light,* and from which the happiest 
results may be anticipated in regard to human improve- 
ment. History represents man as having been hitherto a 
passionate, pugnacious, grasping, and ambitious, rather than 
a moral and rational, being ; and even now we do not feel 
entirely secure against a recurrence of rapine and war. Yet 
fighting and plundering are calculated to gratify only a few 
of the human faculties, and these the lowest in the scale ; 
while they outrage the higher and better feelings. In pro- 
portion as the knowledge of our true good, and of the real 
relations of our nature to our fellow-men, and the external 
world, shall increase, it will be seen that prosperity and en- 
joyment spring only from industry and virtue, and we may 
hope that the appetite for war will diminish. 

The objection has been stated, that, even in the most im- 
proved condition of the great body of the people, there will 
still be a considerable proportion of them so deficient in 
talent, so incapable of improvement, and so ignorant, that 
their labour will be worth little ; that, as they must obtain 
subsistence, no alternative will be left to them but to com- 
pensate by protracted hours of exertion for their deficiencies 
in skill ; and that their labour, furnished at a cheap rate, will 
affect all other classes of society, and prevent the anticipa- 
tions now stated from ever being realised. This objection 
resolves itself into the proposition, That the people have .been 
destined by the Creator to be mere labouring animals, and 
that, from their inherent mental defects, they are incapable 
generally of being raised to any more honourable station ; 
which is just the great point at issue between the old and 
the new philosophy. If mankind at large (for the industrious 
classes constitute so very great a majority of the race, that 
I may be allowed to speak of them as the whole) had been 
intended to continue for ever mere hewers of wood and 
drawers of water, it is probable that moral and intellectual 
faculties would not have been bestowed on them ; and as even 



* The power of manifesting the mental faculties augments in proportion to 
every increase in the size, and improvement in the constitution, of the organs by 
means of which they act : and exercise of these organs has a tendency both to 
enlarge their volume and to exalt their quality. 



48 IS MAN IMPROVABLE % 

the humblest individuals enjoy the rudiments of all the feel- 
ings and capacities which adorn the highest, and as these 
faculties themselves are capable of improvement, I do not 
subscribe to the doctrine of the permanent incapacity of the 
race. I consider them quite capable of becoming qualified, 
in successive generations, to perform the duties and to reap 
the enjoyments of rational beings ; and whenever the great 
majority of them shall have received a thoroughly good educa- 
tion, and a proper moral training, and have thereby acquired a 
sense of the true dignity of their nature, and a relish for the en- 
joyments afforded by their higher faculties, they will be found 
capable of regulating the supply of labour in reference to the 
demand, in such a manner as to obtain the means of subsis- 
tence in return for moderate exertion. I regard it as pro- 
bable, that then few of the imbeciles alluded to in the objec- 
tion will exist ; and that these few will be kept in the right 
path by the influence of enlightened opinion which will then 
pervade the social circle. 

At the same time, in reference to the present and several 
succeeding generations, there is great force in the objection 
now stated. In throwing out the views contained in these 
lectures, I embrace centuries of time. I see the slow pro- 
gress of the human race in the past, and do not anticipate 
miracles in the future. If a sound principle, however, be 
developed — one having its roots in nature — there is a cer- 
tainty that it will wax strong and bear fruit in due season ; 
but that season, from the character of the plant, must be a 
distant one. All who aim at benefiting mankind, ought to 
keep this truth constantly in view. Almost every scheme 
is judged of by its effects on the living generation : whereas, 
no great fountain of happiness ever flowed clear at first, or 
yielded its full stream to the generation who discovered it. 
Even enlightened men do not yet understand the principles 
on which the order of God's secular providence is conducted, 
nor do they practically believe in a real and efficient govern- 
ment of the world by divine laws.* In consequence, man- 
kind do not yet enjoy the moral benefits of Christianity. 
Practical Christianity is only developing its power, and hun- 
dreds of years may elapse before its blessed spirit shall fully 
pervade all the transactions of human life. I do not expect 
to see the principles advocated in these lectures generally 
reduced to practice in this age ; but if they be founded in 
nature, they will in time vindicate their own might. 



* Sec these questions considered in my pamphlets on " The relation be- 
tween Religion and Science. " and " What should Secular Education em- 
brace 



IS MAN IMPROVABLE \ 49 

It is now an established principle in political economy, that 
Government ought not to interfere with industry. This maxim 
was highly necessary when Governors were little acquainted 
with the natural laws which regulate the interests of society. 
Their enactments relating to trade, were then generally 
failures, often doing much harm, and rarely accomplishing 
any good. But if God actually governs the world by means 
of fixed, intelligible, and steadily operating natural laws, de- 
signedly adapted to serve as guides to human conduct, and if 
prosperity and enjoyment be attainable only by conforming our 
institutions and conduct to these laws, it seems reasonable 
to'conclude that the science of human nature being once clear- 
ly developed, our rulers might considerably hasten the attain- 
ment of beneficial results, by adding the constraining autho- 
rity of human laws to enactments already instituted by the 
Creator. Natural laws do exist, and the Creator punishes if 
they be not obeyed. The evils of life are these punishments. 
Now, if the great body of intelligent men in any state, saw clear- 
ly that a course of action pursued by the ill-informed of their 
fellow-subjects was the cause of continual suffering, not only 
to the evil-doers themselves, but to the community, it appears 
to me allowable, that they should stop its continuance by 
legislative enactment. If the majority of the middle classes 
resident in towns were to petition Parliament, at present, to 
order shops in general to be shut at eight o'clock, or even at an 
earlier hour, to allow time for the cultivation of the rational 
faculties of the men and women engaged in them, it would 
be no reprehensible stretch of power to give effect to the pe- 
tition : It would lead to no evil, if the ignorant and avaricious 
were prevented by law from continuing ignorant, and forcing 
all their competitors in trade to resemble them in their de- 
fects. If the Creator have so constituted the world that men 
may execute all necessary business and still have time to 
spare for the cultivation of their rational faculties, any enact- 
ment of the legislature calculated to facilitate the accomplish- 
ment of both ends would be beneficial and successful. It 
would be in accordance with nature, and although the preju- 
diced and ignorant of the present generation might complain 
against it, its results would justify its adoption. This prin- 
ciple of interference would go much farther : its only limits 
seem to me to be the boundaries of the real knowledge of 
nature : for so lone: as the legislature shall enact in confor- 
mity with nature, it will be successful. At present, igno- 
rance is too extensive and prevalent to authorise Parliament 
to venture far. 

D 



50 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

(Since the text was written in 1833, the legislature has 
partially acted on the principles here advocated. It has li- 
mited the hours of labour in factories, enacted laws for en- 
forcing drainage and other hygienic measures in towns ; and 
it is now tending towards enactments to improve the educa- 
tion of the people. These, and other laws of a similar cha- 
racter, appear to me to be within the legitimate province of a 
representative legislature. The chief ground for hesitation 
is, that until the people become so far enlightened as to see 
the foundations of the enactments in nature, they may view 
them as officious and offensive interferences with their rights 
of private judgment and action, and resist them. But if they 
be really conform to nature they will not truly partake of 
this character, and increasing knowledge will reconcile the 
public mind to obedience. In point of fact, resistance will be 
in vain, because the order of Providence will proceed in send- 
ing suffering in various forms, as the natural consequences 
of disobedience to natural laws. Sooner or later this fact 
will be discerned, and the futility of resistance will be ac- 
knowledged. It is no slavery to obey God. Man in vain 
strives with his Maker.) 



LECTURE III. 

ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 



2. Let us now turn our attention to the Female sex, and 
inquire into the provision made for their education. 

In these Lectures I always assume that religious instruc- 
tion is to be delivered by the clergy, and listened to by the 
people throughout life. The due fulfilment of religious duties 
is implied as the consequence of that instruction." As a lay- 
man I do not consider it necessary to enter at large into the 
subject of religion as a branch of education. 

I regard the great secular business of female life to be 
the producing, nurture, and rearing of children ; the due ma- 
nagement of domestic affairs; and the cultivation of those 
graces, virtues, and affections, which shed happiness on the 
family circle. These occupations are equally important to 
women as professions are to men; ar.d under a proper system 
of education, women should be taught every species of know- 
ledge, and instructed in every accomplishment, which may 
directly contribute to the proper discharge of their duties. 
At the earliest dawn of intellect and feeling, the little girl 



Off FEMALE EDUCATION". 51 

manifests the tendency of her nature towards maternity. The 
doll is then the most absorbing object of interest that can be 
offered toher attentions. In maturer years, the mimic infant 
is laid aside, but the feelings which found delightful expres- 
sion in the caresses bestowed on it are not extinct. The 
nature of the woman is the same as that of the girl ; the 
conventional fashions of society may induce her to draw a 
veil over her affections ; but they glow internally, and it will 
be among her strongest desires to give them scope in an 
honourable and useful field. If this be woman's nature, her 
education should bear direct reference to the cultivation of 
it ; in short, next to religion, the maternal and domestic 
duties should be regarded as the leading objects of her exist- 
ence, and her training should proceed in harmony with this 
great end. High physical, moral, and intellectual qualities, 
are necessary for the due fulfilment of these purposes. In- 
deed no occupations allotted to man afford a higher field for 
the exercise of the best elements of mind, than those here 
assigned to woman. 

The physical qualify of highest importance in a woman, 
viewed as a mother, is health. The human body is composed 
of a variety of organs, each endowed with a particular func- 
tion ; and health is the result of the normal action of the 
whole in harmonious combination. Every organ is disposed, 
other circumstances being equal, to act with a degree of 
energy in proportion to its size ; and as disease is the conse- 
quence either of under-action or of over-action, their propor- 
tions to each other in size are points of fundamental impor- 
tance in regard to health. The handsomest figure is one in 
which the abdomen, chest, and head, are all well developed ; 
because, on the first depends digestion, on the second, respi- 
ration, and on the third, mental energy. The limbs will 
rarely be found deficient when the size and proportions of 
those regions are favourable. By the appointment of a wise 
Providence, a human figure of the finest proportions for sym- 
metry and beauty, is, cceteris paribus, the most favourably 
constituted for healthy action. If the carriage of the body 
be erect, and the motions easy and graceful, these are indi- 
cations that the bones are solid and the muscles energetic, — 
that the blood is well nourished and well oxygenized, and 
that it circulates freely. If the countenance beam with in- 
telligence and goodness, this is an indication that the moral 
and intellectual regions of the brain predominate in size, and 
a,re active. Such an individual is, by birth and constitution, 
one of nature's nobility. A woman thus endowed, whose in- 
tellect was also instructed to such an extent that she could 



52 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

maintain her high qualities unimpaired through life, would, 
as a mother, be a treasure of the highest value. 

For many years, the lives of children depend almost exclu- 
sively on the care of the mother. Young women, therefore, 
should be taught not only how to regulate their own habits, 
so that they may preserve their health and vigour, but also 
how to treat children, both as physical and mental beings. 
This information would be attended with great advantages, 
whether they subsequently discharged maternal duties or not. 
The very study of the structure, functions, and proper treat- 
ment of children, with the view of exercising the kindly af- 
fections towards them, would be delightful in itself; and the 
young students, if they did not become mothers, would at 
least be sisters, aunts, or friends, and could never want op- 
portunities to practise their knowledge. Information of this 
description is not neglected by women with impunity. It 
appears by the London bills of mortality, that between a 
fourth and a fifth of all the children baptized, die within the 
first two years. There is no example among the more per- 
fect of the lower animals, of such a vast mortality of the 
young, where external violence is withheld; so that woman, 
with reason, and morality, and religion as her gifts, makes a 
poor figure in her maternal character, contrasted with the in- 
ferior creatures acting under the o-uidance of instinct alone. 
Much of this mortality arises from imperfect health in the 
parents, so that the children are born with feeble constitu- 
tions ; but much is also directly owing to injudicious treat- 
ment after birth. 

One important branch of female instruction, therefore, 
ought to be, the treatment of children as physical beings. 
Lectures should be instituted to communicate this informa- 
tion, and the basis of it ought to be anatomy and physio- 
logy.* The minutiae of these sciences need not be treated 
of, but the leading organs and their uses, on which health 



* '•' It is to the deplorable ignorance, even of persons of education, with re- 
■ the structure and functions of the human body, and everything which 
to health and disease, that we must ascribe the inability of such persons 
. ■ i _'- 1 1 i 1 1 between the rational practitioner and the quack. The higher 
tally, hold regular physic and physicians of small account. Their 
idea i f medicine is, thai it is an art. a craft, a kind of knack (to use a somewhat 
nt hut not inexpressive word), which Bome people are born with, or at- 
tain without study, and by the mere felicity o\' nature. If anatomy and phy- 
, formed part of a good education, physic would reach its proper rank. 
But those who hang with ecstacy over stamens and pistils, or fragments of gra- 
nite and spar, never seem to consider how noble and useful a subject for 
tern ilation exists in their own frames." — Foreign Quarterly Review, No. xxiii., 
p. 119. 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION.- Oo 

and mental activity depend, should be explained. The hu- 
man figure may also be advantageously studied in statuary 
and painting, not only as an interesting object of taste, but 
as a source of useful practical information. A mother whose 
eye was familiar with the proportions of the vital organs 
most conducive to health, would w T atch with increased atten- 
tion and intelligence, the progress of the nutrition of her 
children, and their habits and postures. The tumescent 
abdomen, the flat and narrow chest, the slender limbs, the 
large head, and the curving legs and spine, would become 
perceptible to her practised eye, months before they would 
arrest the attention of an uninstructed and unreflecting wo- 
man ; and on these months, when disease was still only in 
its incipient stage, might depend the life of her cherished off- 
spring. It is a great error to suppose that these studies are 
necessarily shocking and indelicate. They are so only in the 
eyes of ignorance and prejudice. Indelicate descriptions of 
abuses of the bodily functions are highly objectionable ; and 
the enemies of knowledge have represented this to be the in- 
struction which I recommend. Nothing can be more unlike 
it. The Creator has constituted every organ of the body, 
and, in studying its structure and uses, we are contemplat- 
ing his workmanship. There is no inherent indelicacy in the 
human figure. It is the temple of the mind, and its Author 
has impressed on it a beauty of form and an elegance of pro- 
portion, that render it capable of exciting the most pure and 
refined impressions in cultivated and virtuous minds. Where 
indelicacy is felt, its source must be looked for — not in the 
object, but in licentious feelings, or in a perverted and ne- 
glected education in the spectator. That individual who is 
able to associate only impure ideas with the most exquisite 
specimens of the fine arts, resembles a man in whom the 
aspect of a rich and beautiful domain should excite only feel- 
ings of envy, cupidity, and discontent. To call the human 
figure indelicate, is to libel Eternal Wisdom. 

The Creator has taught the inferior creatures to rear their 
young successfully by instinct ; but he has not conferred this 
guide on the human mother. One of two conclusions, there- 
fore, appears to follow. He has intended either that she 
should use her faculties of observation and reflection, in ac- 
quiring all the knowledge requisite for the proper treatment 
of offspring, or that she should recklessly allow a large pro- 
portion of them to perish. One or other of these conclusions 
is really inevitable ; because, as He has denied her instinct, 
and as she cannot obtain knowledge to supply its place, with- 
out application of her intellect to the study of the laws of na- 



54 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

ture, — which instinct prompts the lower creatures to obey 
without knowing them, — the Creator must have intended 
either that she should study these laws, or give up her off- 
spring in vast numbers to destruction. The latter result ac- 
tually happens, to the enormous extent just mentioned ; and, 
if it be the necessary consequence of the Creator's gift of 
reason, in place of instinct, to woman, I submit to condem- 
nation ; but if it be the natural effect of her not having em- 
ployed that reason in a proper direction, I say that He has 
commanded her to study His works. If this conclusion be 
just, we may rest assured that she may safely, and in perfect 
consistency with feminine delicacy, study the Creator's de- 
signs, power, and goodness, in the structure, functions, and 
adaptations of the human body ; and that she will not find 
her higher faculties outraged, but exalted and refined, by the 
knowledge which will thus be revealed.* 

It has been said, that it is better to call in the aid of a 
physician, than to study medicine for one's self. But I do 
not propose that young persons in general should study me- 
dicine. My recommendation is simply, that they should be 
taught the structure and functions of the body with a view 
to preserving their health, to fit them to judge when it is pro- 
per that medical advice should be obtained, and to enable 
them to act like rational patients in the hands of a skilful 
physician, when they are so unfortunate as to fall into dis- 
ease. Every medical practitioner of a humane and honest 
mind, laments the unnecessary suffering and expense to 
which he sees his patients exposed through lack of this infor- 
mation. The publication and sale of such works as Dr Ma- 
caulay's " Popular Medical Dictionary," shew pretty clearly 
that my views on this subject are by no means singular."]" 

It may be imagined, that rules for the preservation of 
health may be taught without anatomy being studied. But 
all such instruction is empirical. The authority of any rule 
of health is the fact, that Nature is constituted in such and 
such a manner, and will act in her own way, whether at- 
tended to or not — for good if obeyed, and for evil if opposed. 
This authority is rarely comprehended without instruction 
conccrnino* the foundation on which it rests. The rule, other- 



* The public has Btrikingly responded to the views stated in the text, as is 
evinced by the ex: >g of the works by Dr A. < !ombe, " On the Physical 

and .Moral bfanag ii of Infancy," and " Physiology applied to Health and 

Education," and of similar works by other authors. 

t Since these lectures were delivered and published in 1833, the advice given 
in the text has been exi ■■■ted on, in teaching Physiology to both sexes, 

by public lectures, and with the happiest effects. 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 55 

wise, resides in the memory rather than in the understand- 
ing ; and the possessor has no power of modifying her con- 
duct, and adapting it judiciously to new circumstances. She 
knows the rule only, and is at a loss whenever any exception 
or new combination not included in it, presents itself. The 
Professor of Scots Law most acutely and judiciously directed 
his students, when reading about the law of title-deeds, to 
take the parchments themselves into their hands, and to look 
at them, — assuring them that familiarity with their mere 
physical appearance, would aid the memory and judgment in 
becoming acquainted with the doctrines relative to their ef- 
fects. Philosophy and experience equally confirm the sound- 
ness of this observation ; and it applies, in an especial manner, 
to rules relative to health. When a good description of the 
respiratory organs, illustrated by prepared specimens or good 
drawings, has been given to a young woman, she understands 
much better, feels more deeply, and remembers much longer 
and more clearly, the dangerous consequences of exposing 
the throat and breast to a stream of cold air or to a sudden 
change of temperature, than when she has only heard or read 
precepts to avoid these and similar practical errors. 

Another leading branch of female education should be that 
kind of knowledge which will fit a woman to direct success- 
fully the moral and intellectual culture of her children. This 
embraces a vast field of useful and interesting information. 
If we should ask any mother, who has not studied mental 
philosophy, to write out a catalogue of the desires, emotions, 
and intellectual powers, which she conceives her children to 
be endowed with ; to describe the particular objects of each 
faculty, its proper sphere of action, the abuses into which it is 
most prone to fall, and also the best method of directing each 
to its legitimate objects, within its just sphere, so as best to 
avoid hurtful aberrations, — we know well that she could not 
execute such a task. I entreat any lady, who has a family, 
and who has derived no aid from mental philosophy, to make 
the experiment for her own satisfaction. She will discover 
in her own mind a vast field of ignorance, of which, before 
making trial, she could not have conjectured the extent. 

The earnest study of Phrenology, or, in other words, of the 
primitive faculties and their scope of action, should form an in- 
dispensable step in practical education. There are few mothers 
who do not sometimes discover wayward feelings, particular 
biases, or alarming tendencies breaking out in their children 
in some instances when they least expect them ; and I ap- 
peal to their own consciousness, whether they have not, in 
alarm and bewilderment, wondered what these could be, and 



56 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

lamented their own inability to comprehend or to guide them. 
Mothers who have experienced this darkness, and have sub- 
sequently studied Phrenology, have appreciated the value and 
importance of the light which it has shed on their practical 
duties. While this edition is in the press, a talented mother 
of a talented son writes to me thus: " There has ever been, 
during the past years since my son's babyhood, a shadow in 
my mind that something more tangible than what is usually 
thought sufficient to guide young men, ought to exist some- 
where, although I was ignorant equally of what that was, 
and where and to whom I should apply to obtain it. The 
works on Phrenology and its applications are fast investing 
my shadow with a body.'' 

I am not pleading the cause of Phrenology for the sake of 
making proselytes. My proposition is general, that a mother 
cannot train faculties without knowing their nature, objects, 
and spheres of activity ; and if any woman can find practical 
information on these points without the aid of Phrenology, I 
earnestly recommend her to seek it out and apply it. To 
Phrenology I owe the views of human nature and its capa- 
bilities, which have most benefited and delighted my own 
mind ; but I am far from pressing it on others, who prefer 
to consider the mind as if it had no known connection with 
organization. If nature has connected it with organs, such 
individuals will meet with their reward in disappointment. 

Let us now suppose a mother to be instructed concerning 
the physical constitution and mental faculties of her children ; 
she will find it expedient next to become acquainted with the 
objects in the external world to which these faculties are re- 
lated. We are told that it is a " delightful task to rear the 
tender thought, and teach the young idea how to shoot." 
The power of doing so seems to imply some knowledge in the 
teacher of the direction in which the mind will tend to shoot, 
and of the objects which it will desire to reach ; in other 
words, such acquaintance with the external world as will en- 
able the mother to excite the moral sentiments and intellect 
of the child, and operate on the happiness of the future man 
or woman. In female training, the communication of this 
knowledge is too much neglected. It implies the study of 
the elements of Chemistry, Natural History, and Natural 
Philosophy, as well as familiar acquaintance with the social 
institutions of our own country, and the civil history of na- 
tions.'- If an ill-informed mother have an acute and clever 



* -Since the first edition of these lectures was published, several successful 
institutions have been formed to remedy these defects in female education. 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. ol 

child, how is she puzzled by its questions ! and if she possess 
any natural sensibility, how keenly does she feel and regret 
her own ignorance, when it forces her to evade instead, of 
furnishing rational and instructive answers to its ino-enious 
and interesting inquiries ! I earnestly recommend to such 
mothers to attend, as speedily as possible, lectures on science 
when within their reach ; for no kind of information so much 
delights an inquisitive child as that which unfolds the course 
of nature. 

The mother has it in her power to exert a great and per- 
manent influence on the character of her children ; she makes 
the deepest impressions, and supplies the earliest ideas that 
enter their minds ; and it is of the utmost importance to so- 
ciety at large, that she should be well qualified for so moment- 
ous a duty. Children who are not gifted with originating 
powers, which is the case with nineteen out of every twenty, 
reflect slavishly, when they grow up, the impressions and ideas 
which their mothers, nurses, companions, teachers, and books 
have infused into their minds ; and of these the authority 
of the mother is not the least. " It was said by one of the 
most extraordinary of men (Napoleon), who was himself, as 
he avowed, principally indebted to maternal culture for the 
unexampled elevation to which he subsequently rose, that 
the future good or bad conduct of a child depends entirely 
on the mother."* Let women remember, therefore, that 
they may sow the seeds of superstition, prejudice, error, 
and baneful prepossessions ; or of piety, universal charity, 
sound sense, philosophical perception, and true knowledge, 
according to the state of their own attainments ; and let them 
also ponder well the fact, that the more thoroughly destitute 
they are of sound information, and of rational views of mind 
and its objects, the less they are aware of their own defi- 
ciencies, and of the evils which their ignorance is inflicting 
on another generation. 

In addition to the branches of solid instruction before men- 
tioned, women should be taught such elegant and refined ac- 
complishments as they individually are capable of learning. 
These throw over the domestic circle a charm which cannot 
be too highly prized. What I condemn is, the teaching of 
music, drawing, and conventional manners, to the exclusion 
of all other kinds of knowledge. An enlightened, refined, 
and elegant woman, is the most lovely and perfect of ani- 



* Moore's notices of the Life of Byron, 12mo, vol. ii. p. 35. Napoleon's pro- 
position is too general. The father's qualities Influence the child ; but those 
of the mother do so still more powerfully. 



58 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

mated beings ; and no philosopher, in recommending useful 
instruction, would desire to see abated, by one iota, the graces 
which adorn the female character. 

These views may appear to be so consonant with reason, 
that they support themselves ; but as I am addressing a po- 
pular assembly, I solicit permission to strengthen them by 
the opinions of three contemporary authors. 

The evils attendant on the imperfect education of females 
belonging to the upper ranks, are forcibly expounded in a 
late number of the Foreign Quarterly Review (No. xxiii., p. 
127). " Nothing,'' says the reviewer, " is more remarkable 
in the present age of mental excitement, than the care with 
which, by most of the prevalent customs and a system of 
fashionable education, the minds of the generality of females 
are consigned to inactivity and utter uncompanionable insi- 
pidity. Whilst the expression of almost every elevated feel- 
ing is repressed as inconsistent with refinement, every arti- 
ficial want, every habit of selfish gratification, is as much as 
possible indulged. Active exercise in the open air, cheerful 
country walks, a joyful participation of the hearty pleasures 
of any society, in which every movement is not taught by the 
posture-master, or conversation conducted according to the 
rules laid down in books professing to teach female duty and 
behaviour ; — all this would be inconsistent with the general 
aim of all classes to imitate the manners and habits of the 
highest. All kinds of reading, except of works the most fri- 
volous, is considered ungenteel, or at least singular ; and any 
display of deep and unsophisticated sentiment excites uni- 
versal pity. The beauties of nature, the triumphs of science, 
the miracles of art, excite no more than a languid expression 
of wonder. To apply the mind to read or understand such 
things, would destroy the apathetic elegance which those de- 
sire to preserve, who still believe knowledge to be a very 
good thing for persons who live by it. With as much care 
as the natural proportions of the female figure are destroyed 
by stays made upon abstract principles, is the mind cribbed 
and cabined by custom and fashion. Then, universal ambi- 
tion leads to universal difficulties as to fortune ; and the only 
serious duty as to daughters is, to obtain an advantageous 
settlement, which, whether gained or missed, is too often 
thus the cause of cureless discontent, injured health, and all 
the nervous maladies incidental to an ill-managed mind and 
infirm body.'' 

" The system by which young ladies are taught to move 
their limbs according tu the rules of art, to come into a room 
with studied diffidence, and to step into a carriage with 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 59 

measured action and premeditated grace, are calculated only 
to keep the degrading idea perpetually present, that they are 
preparing for the great market of the world. Real elegance 
or demeanour springs from the mind : fashionable schools do 
hut teach its imitation,' whilst their rules forbid to be ingenuous. 
Philosophers never conceived the idea of so perfect a vacuum 
as is found to exist in the minds of young women who are 
supposed to have finished their education in such establish- 
ments. If they marry husbands as uninformed as themselves, 
they fall into habits of indolent insignificance without much 
pain ; if they marry persons more accomplished, they can re- 
tain no hold of their affections. Hence many matrimonial 
miseries, in the midst of which the wife finds it a consola- 
tion to be always complaining of her health and ruined 
nerves."— (lb., pp. 128-9.) 

" Knowledge,' 5 says Mrs John Sandford, " should be ap- 
preciated by women for its own sake, and not merely as a 
distinction. The superiority of cultivated women is in every 
thing very apparent. They have been accustomed to think 
and to discriminate, and their opinion is not a mere momen- 
tary impulse. Their sphere, too, is enlarged ; they are not 
so much actuated by selfish feelings, or so liable to receive 
partial, and consequently erroneous, impressions. What an 
easy dupe to empiricism or design is a half-educated woman ! 
With sufficient acquirements to be vain, and sufficient sensi- 
bility to be soon imposed on, she may be easily seduced from 
principles which she has received only on the authority of 
others, and which she is therefore ill prepared to defend." — 
" Disorder is the accident, not the consequence, of talent ; 
and as it is the more conspicuous, so it is the less excused, 
when accompanied with mental superiority." 

I conclude this branch of the subject with the following 
just and eloquent observations of an American authoress, 
Mrs Emma Willard. It forms part of an admirable address 
which she presented, in 1819, to the Legislature of New 
York, proposing a plan for improving female education ; and 
which address led to the formation of an extensive esta- 
blishment at Troy, of which she was long the head. " Not 
only," says she, " has there been a want of system concern- 
ing female education, but much of what has been done has 
proceeded upon mistaken principles. One of these is, that 
without a regard to the different periods of life, proportionate 
to their importance, the education of females has been too 
exclusively directed to fit them for displaying to advantage 
the charms of youth and beauty. Though it may be proper 
to adorn this period of life, yet it is incomparably more im- 



GO ON FEMALE EDUCATION . 

portant to prepare for the serious duties of maturer years. 
Though well to decorate the blossom, it is far better to pre- 
pare for the harvest. In the vegetable creation, nature seems 
but to sport when she embellishes the flower, while all her 
serious cares are directed to perfect the fruit. 

" Another error is, that it has been made the first object 
in educating our sex, to prepare them to please the other. 
But reason and religion teach, that we too are primary exist- 
ences ; that it is for us to move, in the orbit of our duty, 
around the Holy Centre of Perfection, the companions, not 
the satellites of men ; else, instead of shedding around us an 
influence that may help to keep them in their proper course, 
we must accompany them in their wildest deviations. 

" I would not be understood to insinuate (continues Mrs 
Willard), that we are not, in particular situations, to yield 
obedience to the other sex. Submission and obedience be- 
long to every tiling in the universe, except the Great Master 
of the whole. Nor is it a degrading peculiarity to our sex, 
to be under human authority. Whenever one class of human 
beings derives from another the benefits of support and pro- 
tection, they must pay its equivalent, obedience. Thus, 
while we receive these benefits from our parents, we are all, 
without distinction of sex, under their authority ; when we 
receive them from the government of our country, we must 
obey our rulers ; and when our sex take the obligations of 
marriage, and receive support and protection from the other, 
it is reasonable that we too should yield obedience. Yet is 
neither the child, nor the subject, nor the wife, under human 
authority, but in subservience to the Divine. Our highest 
responsibility is to God, and our highest interest to please 
him ; therefore to secure this interest our education should 
be directed. 

" Neither would I be understood to mean that our sex 
should not seek to make themselves agreeable to the other. 
The error complained of is, that the taste of men, whatever 
it might happen to be, has been made a standard for the for- 
mation of the female character. In whatever we do, it is of 
the utmost importance that the rule by which we work be 
perfect; for. if otherwise, what is it but to err upon prin- 
ciple ? A system of education which leads one class of human 
beings to consider the approbation of another as their high- 
est object, teaches that the rule of their conduct should be 
the will of beings imperfect and erring like themselves, 
rather than the will of God, which is the only standard of 
perfection." 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. Gl 

On the whole subject of education, then, I remark, that if 
society were organised for instructing the people, and pro- 
viding time arid means for the exercise of their moral and in- 
tellectual faculties, as effectually as it is for paying taxes or 
fighting, the progress of civilisation, and the amount of hu- 
man enjoyment, would be greatly increased. Lord Brougham 
lately observed, that until the people shall take the matter 
of education with spirit and energy into their own hands, and 
with a resolution to accomplish something, Government will 
be incapable of doing any essential service to the cause. The 
Association at whose request these Lectures have been de- 
livered, has been formed in anticipation of the recommenda- 
tion implied in this remark. I solicit your attention to its 
objects and constitution, and hope that if these merit your 
approbation, you will favour it with your support. 

ACCOUNT OF THE EDINBURGH ASSOCIATION FOR PROCURING 
INSTRUCTION IN USEFUL AND ENTERTAINING SCIENCE ; 
NOW NAMED THE PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 

In the autumn of 1832, a number of individuals of this 
city, chiefly engaged in practical business, who had attended 
my Summer Course of Lectures on Phrenology, formed them- 
selves into an association for the purpose of obtaining in- 
struction in Useful and Entertaining Science. Associations 
for similar purposes had previously been founded in other 
cities, and had been partially successful, but not to so great 
an extent as might have been anticipated. The London 
University College, for example, is an institution for afford- 
ing scientific education, particularly to the sons of persons 
resident in the metropolis, who prefer superintending their 
conduct in their own houses, to sending them to Cambridge 
or Oxford ; but it has not met with the encouragement which 
its utility and importance deserved. In most of the great 
towns of England, there are literary and scientific institu- 
tions ; but they also have been attended with only limited 
success. In the absolute amount of instruction conveyed to 
the people, they have fallen greatly short of what they pro- 
mised to accomplish at their foundation. In tracing the 
causes of these shortcomings, two in particular attract our 
notice. In these instances, large sums of money have been 
collected by subscription from wealthy individuals, and ex- 
pended in forming buildings, libraries, and museums. The 
leading founders and directors have been rich merchants, 
patriotic landed proprietors, and a few men of science. They 
have provided money, lecture-rooms, apparatus — in short 



62 LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 

every thing physical ; but they have not been equally fortu- 
nate in furnishing audiences to fill the lecture-rooms, and 
students to peruse the books piled in the shelves of their 
libraries. Whence has this last and important deficiency 
arisen 1 

Men in general have appetites sufficiently strong to impel 
them, without external excitement, to seek supplies for the 
wants of their animal nature. Hunger and thirst press so 
keenly on their feelings, that the most thoughtless of mankind 
are prompted, by their importunity, to exert themselves to 
procure food. The piercing winds and the winter's frost 
force them to provide raiment. But it is argued by some 
writers on religious and scientific education that the case is 
quite different with our moral and intellectual nature. The 
human being, deeply buried in ignorance, has no painful con- 
sciousness of his condition ; he is stimulated by no self-act- 
ing desires to feed and clothe his mind ; he will remain for 
ever mentally destitute and naked, the passive victim of his 
animal feelings, unless excited by the importunity of more 
enlightened men to cast aside his sloth. 

The authors who espouse these principles, maintain the 
necessity of Established churches to teach religion, and of en- 
dowed universities to impart knowledge of philosophy and 
science. They regard clergymen and professors, paid by the 
State, as staff-officers, and an army of aggression appointed 
to wage war on public apathy and ignorance. It is said to 
be the duty of the State-Clergy to go from house to house and 
invade the dormant inmates ; to rouse them with the din of 
knowledge, and urge them to the banquet of religion. Hav- 
ing created an appetite for piety, these public heralds are 
supposed to present food fitted to every palate, and thus to 
Christianize the world. Professors and teachers, I presume, 
arc expected to follow a similar course of action. 

While this representation contains some truth, it does not 
appear to me to be entirely correct. The appetite of the mass 
of the people for instruction has never been fairly tried. Ity 
their external circumstances they have been trained to fight, 
to labour, and to indulge in dissipation ; but rarely to seek 
enjoyment in the cultivation of their moral and intellec- 
tual powers. It would be as reasonable to state, as an objec- 
tion against human nature, that an individual trained as a 
divine, has little relish for agriculture or for law, as to urge 
as a plea against it, that labourers and artizans, whose men- 
tal powers have never been cultivated, but, on the contraiy, 
have been blunted by their occupations, have no taste for li- 
terature or science. 



LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 63 

Besides, the great body of the people have never had whole- 
some mental food presented to them, and their defect of ap- 
petite is prematurely assumed. If the foregoing views of the 
constitution of the mind and its adaptations be correct, the 
objects best calculated to rouse the intellect, and delight the 
moral sentiments, are those presented by Nature in her va- 
rious departments ; and knowledge of this kind has never 
been offered to the people and rej ected. Drowsy and incapable 
teachers have too often administered husks and rubbish to the 
youthful mind ; and, because it has revolted at this dose, it has 
been charged with a distaste for all useful information. If 
the minds of practical men could have taken a deep and 
abiding interest in Greek, Latin, scholastic logic, and metaphy- 
sics, I should have despaired of the progress of the race ; and 
yet, until almost the present day, the learned had little else 
to offer to their notice. That they have turned with distaste 
from these studies is no better proof that they will dislike 
all knowledge, than the rejection of wormwood by a child is 
evidence that it will not relish sugar. Before the appetite of 
the people for knowledge can be fairly estimated, they must 
be placed in external circumstances calculated to favour the 
activity of their moral and intellectual powers ; knowledge 
really related to their faculties must be presented to them ; 
and their teachers must be men qualified by nature and ac- 
quirements to communicate useful information and command 
respect. In ;i Hints on an improved and Self-paying System 
of National Education," recently published by the Reverend 
Richard Dawes, Yicar of King's Somborne,* this author 
states, as the result of his own experience, " and as a ground 
of encouragement, that where the education in our schools is 
made to bear on practical life, the parents themselves will 
make a much greater effort to pay for it than they have 
hitherto had credit for." (P. 17.) 

In two pamphlets on the ' ; Relation between Religion and 
Science," and on the question " What should Secular Edu- 
cation "embrace V I have endeavoured to expound the idea 
that the principles on which God administers the physical, 
organic, and moral government of the world, are to be dis- 
covered by studying the constitution, modes of action, and 
laws of the instruments, or of the things and beings, by means 
of which that government is conducted ; but this proposition 
is not generally recognised as true ; yet, until it shall be ad- 
mitted, the paramount importance of studying and acting in 
harmony with the laws of nature, cannot be comprehended. 

* London : Groombriclge and Sons. 1847. 



(]4 LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 

This view of Providence is not understood because the people 
have rarely been taught the philosophy of their own nature, 
physical and mental, and its relations to the external world. 
Hence, if there be any course of study or of action, written, 
as it were, in the constitution of man, and recommended by 
the Creator to our attention, too little of that lesson has yet 
been read to the people. Teachers themselves were igno- 
rant of it. The mental organs being a portion of the means 
by which the moral government of the world is conducted, 
must be studied and understood before the principles of that 
government can be comprehended ; nevertheless, this study 
is, by many persons, opposed, denounced, or neglected, as if 
God had neither framed the organs nor established their re- 
lations. 

Even assuming the argument against the appetite of the 
people for instruction to be more sound than it is, the pro- 
posed mode of supplying the defect does not appear to me to 
be altogether satisfactory. After the churches and colleges 
have been built, and ministers and professors endowed, the 
question remains, Who shall arouse and collect the people 
for instruction % It is easy to say that it will be the duty of 
these teachers to do so ; but professors cannot, in consistency 
with the practices of society, go into the houses, the streets, 
and the byeways, and expostulate with the people on their 
want of a moral and intellectual appetite, and importune them 
to come to the banquet of knowledge and be fed. They are 
remunerated by fees contributed by their students, and they 
cannot go a-begging for an audience, without having their 
motives entirely misinterpreted. Great obstacles lie in the 
way even of the clergy pursuing such a course. There are 
various sects in religion, and various shades of belief. The 
families who differ from the State minister will not volunta- 
rily accept of his invitation ; and if it be too anxiously urged 
upon them, they will repel it. If the clergy of every sect 
shall become active belligerents in favour each of his own 
opinions, they will convert the world into a theatre of theo- 
logic war, and the minds of men will become the prize of the 
acutest wrangler. The decorum of the clerical character re- 
quires a modest, calm, and dignified deportment, unlike that of 
solicitation and importunity. Yet, unless there be prompters 
to enforce attendance, or unless the appetite already exist to 
induce the people spontaneously to repair to the portals of the 
church, or to the halls of the schools and the university, the 
richest viands for the mind may be spread there, and no guests 
be found to enjoy their delicious savours. Accordingly, we 
perceive, that, after the London University College has been 



LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 65 

reared, and other arrangements for education have been com- 
pleted, the students are few, and the good accomplished is 
limited. The citizens, educated in words alone, are unbe- 
lievers in the existence of practical knowledge, and proceed 
in their wonted rounds of labour and money-getting, uncon- 
scious of the value of science, and without a motive to en- 
gage in its study. Some provincial institutions for the scien- 
tific instruction of the industrious classes, have shared a simi- 
lar fate. They have perhaps been frequented for a short 
time, while novelty and influential names produced excite- 
ment ; but have too soon been deserted by those for whose 
benefit they were reared. For these unfavorable results, I 
blame the stinted education given to the existing generation 
in their primary schools. This left them sceptics concerning 
even the existence of useful knowledge, and defrauded them 
of all taste for its advantages and sweets. Indifference to 
instruction has been fostered also, by the low estimate too 
generally formed by religious teachers of the practical value 
of natural science ; and the blindness of many persons to the 
fact that science is information concerning the great laws by 
means of which God governs the world. 

It is true, then, that, in the present state of society, there 
is a vast body of men, who, from their circumstances and train- 
ing, feel no spontaneous impulses towards improving their 
moral and intellectual nature, and who, if provided with food, 
clothing, shelter, and amusement, desire little else. But 
there are also among the people many gifted spirits, whose 
native energies have enabled them to surmount all the ob- 
stacles presented by imperfect education to the expansion of 
their minds, whose moral and intellectual faculties long for 
knowledge, for refinement, and for improvement in virtue, 
as keenly as their bodily appetites burn for their proper gra- 
tifications. These individuals have struggled hard for food 
for the mind ; and they have generally obtained it. They 
not only desire to advance themselves, but they feel a call 
within them to become apostles or missionaries to excite their 
less vivacious and intellectual brethren to improvement. 
This appears to me to be the class instituted by Providence 
for successfully inviting the unwilling guests to the banquet 
of knowledge. 

Too many of the educational institutions which have hither- 
to been formed, have omitted to invoke the co-operation of 
these important auxiliaries. Bankers, merchants, and landed 
gentlemen, whose consequence and influence originated in, 
and depended chiefly on, wealth, have been the founders and 
directors of most of the existing establishments ; and by rank, 

E 



66 LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 

habits, feelings, and inclinations, they were far removed 
from the class of slumbering minds who stood in need of being 
awakened. 

The Association whose cause I now advocate, is founded 
on better principles. If we wished to institute a bank or an 
insurance company, we should apply to the richest, most ex- 
perienced, and most respectable citizens, for their subscrip- 
tions, names, and influence ; just because the skill of such 
men would constitute the soul, and their wealth the substance, 
of such associations. But if our object were to form a so- 
ciety for convincing ill-educated men and women of the evils 
of ignorance and the advantages of knowledge, and for urg- 
ing them to send their sons and their daughters to school to 
be taught ; and if we acted on the principles which sagacious 
men follow in the formation of trading companies, whom 
should we select to become the members and directors of such 
an association ! Not, certainly, gentlemen who have attained 
eminence in trade, without being conspicuous for their general 
knowledge ; not persons distinguished for wealth, but desti- 
tute of liberal ideas ; nor even philosophers devoted exclu- 
sively to science, and far removed by their habits and pur- 
suits from familiar intercourse with the busy, but ill-educated, 
sons of commerce : No ; — we should give such an association 
a body and a soul suited to its proper objects, and then we 
should succeed. These are to be found only among the men, 
whatever may be their rank or wealth, to whom Providence 
has given the noble inheritance of vigorous moral and intel- 
lectual faculties ; persons who have had the appetite for 
knowledge bestowed on them by nature, without having had 
instruction placed before them by fortune, independently of 
their own exertions : men whose minds rejoice in having been 
the architects of their own education; who know what it is to 
have been ignorant, and to have burned with the desire of 
instruction ; and who, through many difficulties, have ac- 
quired a considerable portion of useful knowledge. An as- 
sociation composed of such individuals will do much good on 
apparently small means. They will form a nucleus round 
which all interested in the welfare of the rising generation 
may gather together. From observation and experience they 
will be capable of judging what kind of instruction will be 
most relished, and what lecturers will best communicate it. 
A few years ago, some of the Professors of the University 
of Edinburgh most laudably gave popular lectures on their 
sciences to the higher ranks, but failed in securing audiences 
after the first and second years. On inquiring into the causes 
of their want of success, I was led to believe that these were 



LECTURES ON" EDUCATION. 67 

two. 1. The individuals who attended were, in general, not 
actuated by any real love of science, but chiefly by the im- 
pulse of fashion. 2. The Professors did not put forth their 
strength to open up the sciences to the understandings of 
their audiences, with the purpose of giving them useful in- 
formation. They addressed chiefly the imagination and won- 
der of their hearers ; they astonished and amused them ; but 
left no permanent impression of advantage resulting from 
the studies. Many minds are capable of teaching a subject 
scientifically, who cannot impart practical and popular views 
of it; and only those who possess the latter gift will succeed 
in permanently commanding the attention of a general audi- 
ence. 

The present Association proceeds on different principles. 
Its lecturers keep solid instruction, and the enlargement of 
the minds of their hearers, constantly in view, as their lead- 
ing objects ; adding graces and ornament only in so far as 
these are compatible with the main ends. 

The members and directors of this Association, then, are 
men engaged in the business of the world, yet ardently alive to 
the advantages of education, and desirous to induce their fel- 
low-citizens to embrace all opportunities of acquiring it. They 
are connected by relationship, friendship, and business, with 
the very classes who require to be roused and induced to come 
to the halls of science. They are not themselves teachers or 
lecturers, and are consequently at liberty to importune, advise, 
and plead in favour of knowledge, in a way that no professor 
can possibly do, to induce hearers to come to his prelections. 
They are at all times witnesses of the impressions made, 
and are much better aware of the kind of information want- 
ed, than any established authorities, moving in a higher 
sphere, and holding only a formal communication with igno- 
rant inferiors. 

The Directors are regularly changed, transmitting the ac- 
tive management to the young and rising of each generation. 
It would be fatal to the project, if the same individuals were 
retained constantly in office. Their zeal would flag ; the 
circle of their influence would be exhausted ; and drowsiness 
would seize upon all the movements of the society. 

Another advantage of an association of this kind is, that 
it affords instruction cheap. The industrious classes are so 
numerous, that if they will only act in combination, there are 
no mental advantages which wealth can command that they 
may not attain. As a lecturer, I can certify that, inde- 
pendently of gain, it is far more animating and agreeable to 
lecture to 100 than to 20 hearers, and more exciting still to 



68 LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 

address 200 than 100. By bringing forward an audience of 
200 or 300, therefore, the lecturer will be remunerated by a 
comparatively small contribution from each, and have his 
pleasure in teaching greatly increased. 

This Association differs in its objects from the School of 
Arts, and has succeeded without interfering with it. The 
School of Arts is designed chiefly to afford scientific instruc- 
tion, which may aid operative mechanics in their trades ; the 
present Institution embraces a more extensive range. There 
are numerous classes of merchants and tradesmen, besides fe- 
males of every rank, to whom the instruction provided at 
the School of Arts is too technical to be useful ; and for them 
chiefly is this Association intended. 

An objection may be urged, that only superficial knowledge 
can be communicated in the proposed lectures, and that the 
tendency of such instruction is to encourage pedantry and 
discontent. The line of Pope, that " a little learniny is a 
dangerous thing," is often quoted in opposition to all propo- 
sals for instructing the industrious classes. There is much 
force in this objection, if learning be confined to mere read- 
ing and writing ; but it is pointless when applied to instruc- 
tion in Natural Science, which is the kind of knowledge in fa- 
vour of which I am now pleading. 

" It would be easy to shew, 1 ' says Dr Caldwell, " that, 
under the government of the United States, a very limited 
amount of school-learning, diffused among the people, is cal- 
culated, politically speaking, to injure, rather than to benefit 
them. I allude to that degree of attainment, which qualifies 
them merely to read newspapers, and understand the mean- 
ing of what they contain, without enabling them to judge of 
its soundness. A people only thus far instructed, are in the 
fittest of all conditions to be imposed on and misled by art- 
ful demagogues and dishonest presses. When party spirit 
runs high, and the political passions become inflamed, they 
are induced, by intriguing men, to read papers only on one 
side of the question. The consequence is plain. Not being 
able to judge of the truth of the matter laid before them, as 
respects either the fitness of men, or the tendency of mea- 
sures, they are liable to be seduced into the most ruinous 
courses. Were they unable to read at all, or did they never 
see a newspaper, their condition would be less dangerous. 
Demagogues would have less power to delude and injure 
them. In the present state of our country, it is emphatically 
true, as relates to the great body of the people, that 

' A little learning is a dangerous thing.' 



LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 69 

" The only remedy for the evil consists in the reformation 
of the public pr 'esses, or the diffusion of more learning, know- 
ledge, and virtue^ among the people. The former, it is to be 
apprehended, is not soon to be looked for. On the latter 
alone, therefore, rest the fate of our government, and the 
hope of our country. Let the community at large be taught 
to think correctly and feel soundly, and they will not only 
have a secure protection against the falsehood and corruption 
of the presses ; these sources of mischief will cease to be en- 
couraged. They must then choose between reformation and 
extinction. At the present moment, some of our public 
presses are the arch-engines of evil to our country, and a dis- 
grace to the human character.''* 

I consider entire ignorance as more dangerous than partial 
knowledge. 

" Learning," in Pope's time, meant an acquaintance with 
Latin and Greek, and with the barbarous jargons of logic and 
metaphysics, which constituted the chief stock of knowledge 
of educated men in his clay. Science has, to a great extent' 
been created since the time of Pope ; and it has been brought 
within the reach of the industrious classes only within these 
twenty years. His remark, therefore, is wholly inapplicable 
to instruction in scientific knowledge. So far as it goes, it 
is instruction in the laws of God's secular Providence. A 
little of such knowledge is better than none at all, on the 
same principle that it is better to know our way clearly, al- 
though only for one mile, than to be entirely ignorant to which 
hand to turn on our journey through life. A man who has 
learned how to deal with two causes which produce two ef- 
fects involving his happiness, is more profitably wise than he 
who is acquainted with only one. If the instruction be use- 
ful, the smallest quantity cannot possibly injure, while it may 
create an appetite for more. 

I deny, however, that the knowledge communicated will 
necessarily be superficial. If the directors and the lecturers 
do their duty, solid and extensive instruction in the great 
leading principles of the sciences may be communicated in 
popular lectures. An intelligent student of geography may 
be very far behind a practical surveyor in his knowledge of 
the localities of a particular country, every acre of which the 
surveyor has measured and delineated ; but his knowledge 
of the relative positions of all important places, may still be 



* A Discourse on the Advantages of a National University, especially in its 
influence on the Union of the United (States; delivered September 25, 1832. 
By Charles Caldwell, M.D. 



70 LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 

accurate, extensive, and useful. The popular student of ana- 
tomy and physiology may be far short of the skill which 
would enable him to tie an artery or to amputate a limb ; 
but he may still possess precise and valuable information 
concerning the structure and functions of the great organs, 
on the proper condition of which health and life depend ; and 
he may understand and be able practically to apply the prin- 
ciples thus unfolded. Lectures have also a very beneficial 
influence in communicating to the mind an interest in any 
science treated of, and a familiarity with its general prin- 
ciples, which enable the student to pursue his studies of it in 
books, with a zeal and facility which could not otherwise be 
attained. 

It has been urged against popular instruction, that, by 
communicating a smattering of knowledge to all, it will pre- 
vent the growth of great geniuses and profound philosophers ; 
in short, that we shall have a superficially learned society, 
but no masters in science. This is the argument of a com- 
mon-place mind, which has acquired celebrity by arduous 
study of other men's thoughts, and which dreads the approach 
of the vulgar to its shrine of self-importance and conceit. 
There is a simple answer to the argument. Genius either is, 
or is not, necessary to reach the profundities of science. If 
it be necessary, — then my argumen is, that genius is an in- 
herent quality of a few gifted minds ; it goes on in its own 
way conquering and to conquer; it rejoices in the fellowship 
of human beings, although their progress be but a furlong, 
while it advances a league ; its power is within itself, and 
it is not impeded by the presence of a multitude moving in 
the same direction. It is cheered by their proximity, ani- 
mated by their applause, and feels more confident of its re- 
ward, in proportion as they become capable of appreciating 
its achievements. Genius, therefore, will not stop short in 
its high career, because the denizens of the busy world are 
gazing at its progress in fond admiration, and advancing .in 
the same path, although at a vast and perhaps an impassable 
distance. If genius be not necessary to profound acquire- 
ments in philosophy and science, then the higher the common 
standard of attainment is raised, the farther ahead must those 
proceed who desire to hold a prominent station in public 
esteem. All the motives of interest and ambition by which 
common minds are actuated, increase in proportion as the 
class is numerous and enlightened by which the prizes are 
awarded. This objection, therefore, has no solid foundation. 
It has also been maintained, that the study of science in- 
capacitates the mind, or at least gives it a distaste, for busi- 



LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 71 

ness. This is an important objection, and demands serious 
consideration. What should we say to the assertion that 
the practice of walking unfitted a man for running ; or that 
the habit of eating wholesome food had a great tendency to 
impair the digestive organs 1 "We should laugh at such ab- 
surdities : because the man runs by means of the same bones, 
tendons, and muscles by which he walks ; and walking is the 
moderate, natural, and healthy exercise of those parts ; so 
that while it may well augment his capacity for running, it 
cannot possibly impair it, unless carried to excess. Whole- 
some food also is the natural stimulus of the digestive or- 
gans, and, if used in moderation, it is the best prescription 
for preserving them in health ; and, in point of fact, there 
can be no vigour in the function if it be withheld. Now, the 
Creator has constituted external nature and the moral and 
intellectual faculties of man, and adapted them to each other, 
with the same wisdom which he has manifested in adapting 
the stomach to food, and the muscles to the law of gravita- 
tion. The effects of knowledge are, to strengthen the under- 
standing and to enable it to act vigorously, and to judge 
soundly of the things and beings with which it is dealing. 
A man transacts business by means of the same mental fa- 
culties with which he studies useful science. The moderate 
pursuit of science, therefore, has the same tendency to 
strengthen, improve, and gratify the mental faculties, that 
the use of wholesome food has to benefit the digestive func- 
tions. It is absurd, then, to assert either that the study of 
nature is not calculated to strengthen these powers, or that 
a study which is calculated to strengthen them, unfits them 
for business. 

Facts also support these conclusions of reason. The Rev. 
J. R. Bryce, of the Belfast Academy, certified from expe- 
rience, that boys engaged in studying Natural History and 
Languages, mastered their lessons in the latter with greater 
alacrity than did boys who learned languages exclusively ; 
and a successful private teacher in Edinburgh has declared 
to me that those among his pupils who are permitted to at- 
tend to science, outstrip those who do not, even, in the study 
of Greek and Latin. 

The sources of the prevalent errors on this head can be 
easily traced. If young persons give themselves up to the 
excessive and exclusive study of works of fiction and imagi- 
nation, they impair their relish for, and also their powers of 
conducting, practical business ; because most works of fiction 
are addressed more to the propensities and inferior senti- 
ments, than to the moral and intellectual faculties. The re- 



72 LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 

cital of horrors exercises Destructiveness, the description of 
wild and mysterious events arouses Wonder, Cautiousness, 
and Secretiveness ; but these are not the chief faculties by 
means of which business is transacted. When these facul- 
ties become highly active, the transition to sober observa- 
tion and reflection is painful, and business is disliked. The 
exclusive study of the Fine Arts, even, is not favourable to 
the formation of business habits. Painting, poetry, sculp- 
ture, and music, exercise Ideality, the moral sentiments, and 
several of the intellectual powers ; and unquestionably com- 
municate to these refinement and susceptibility : but they 
leave many of the subordinate feelings and some of the re- 
flecting faculties uncultivated ; while the objects with which 
they are chiefly conversant, belong to the world of imagina- 
tion. The study of the Fine Arts, therefore, when exclusive, 
both unfits the faculties for practical business, and withholds 
ideas connected with worldly affairs. Many persons, from 
observing the injurious effects of an excessive devotion to 
those pursuits on the mind's aptitude for serious study, have 
concluded that every species of mental exercise that is not 
laborious and disagreeable, must have a similar effect, and 
that therefore science also is apt to obstruct the formation of 
habits of energetic application. But the cases are widely 
different. The kind of exercise which the study of the natu- 
ral sciences gives to the mind, is closely analogous to that 
which is necessary in the management of practical affairs. 
Those persons, therefore, who imagine that they have facts 
in support of the baneful influence of scientific instruction, 
in unfitting the mind for business, must have in view only the 
exclusive pursuit of one abstract science, such as mathema- 
tics, which is quite different from what is here recommended. 

The study of the fine arts, poetry, and works of fiction, 
however, should not be undervalued. They are sources of 
great enjoyment, and when kept within due bounds, refine, 
exalt, and expand the mind, without weakening it. It is only 
excessive indulgence in the pleasures which they afford, that 
is practically injurious. 

But there is one effect of the study of science, which I am 
prepared to admit. When the mind has been opened up to 
the designs of Providence, as displayed in creation, and has 
learned to draw its best enjoyments from contemplating their 
excellence and grandeur, and taking a part in their execution, 
there will be a distaste for excessive and exclusive money- 
getting, and for the present long and toilsome hours of at- 
tendance at the manufactory, the shop, and the counting- 
house. These will be felt to be inimical to man's moral and 



LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 73 

intellectual progression, and be restricted. This result I hail 
as a positive advantage, believing, as I do, that all our wants 
may be amply supplied, and that time may still be left us to 
cultivate and enjoy our rational powers. Should this result 
follow in the course of ages, it will be an example, not of 
study producing incapacity for business, but of moral and in- 
tellectual enlightenment regulating the plan of life, and re- 
ducing it into conformity with the constitution of our rational 
nature. 

The class of persons who would be benefited by the lec- 
tures which this Association will bring forward, is one of 
great importance. They have votes for members of Parlia- 
ment, and exercise political power. From among them are 
chosen the managers of many of the Hospitals for educating 
children, both male and female, in this city. They become 
commissioners of Police, and in that capacity superintend all 
public measures for increasing the health and comfort of the 
citizens. As members of Parochial Boards, they are entrusted 
with the management of the poor, and the education and 
training of the pauper children. They are elected members 
of the Town-Council of Edinburgh, and become the patrons 
of the City's public schools, of the High School, of most of 
the Chairs in the University, and of the City Churches.* 
Society is at present in a state of visible transition. Old 
ideas, habits, and practices, are fast disappearing, and the 
public mind is bounding forward eagerly in search of new and 
untried institutions. Is it not the interest of all, that sound 
knowledge of physical science and the nature of man, and 
through them of the laws of God's Secular Providence, should 
be diffused among all ranks, and particularly among that 
class which is respectable by its morality, and influential by 
its property, and which requires only intellectual information 
to render it at once the ornament and safeguard of the state 1 
Mechanics' Institutions provide instruction in science for 
operative tradesmen ; and the Universities open their gates for 
the aristocracy ; but females of all ranks, and the middle 



* One of the first consequences of the instruction of this class of the commu- 
nity in science, will probably be the reformation of the primary schools of this 
City, and the second, if not simultaneous with the other, will be the ventilating 
of the churches and public rooms ; in both of which matters the profound 
ignorance of the last generation continues to inflict much evil on the present in- 
habitants of Edinburgh. First Edition. Since the foregoing note was written 

in 1833, a good deal has been done in Edinburgh to remove the evils of defective 
ventilation in public rooms. Second Edition, 1837. Since 1837, great pro- 
gress has been made in extending and improving schools, and promoting sani- 
tary measures in Edinburgh, 1818. 



74 LECTUItES ON EDUCATION. 

classes of citizens, although at least as important and inte- 
resting from their numbers, their position, and their wealth, 
as either of the other two, have hitherto been overlooked. 
They are now pursuing the only course that can conduct 
them to an equality in point of knowledge with the classes 
above and below them in the social scale, — coming forward 
to provide the means of instruction for themselves. This is 
precisely what they ought to do. They possess among them- 
selves too many well-informed, able, and active men, to ren- 
der it necessary for them to go into leading-strings under the 
great in literature and science ; and too much wealth to per- 
mit them to solicit pecuniary aid from any individuals out of 
their own circle. They come forth, therefore, in their own 
strength and might, conscious that, by union and co-operation, 
they can accomplish their own intellectual regeneration. 
Edinburgh stands pre-eminent in literary and philosophical 
reputation among the cities of the world ; but she would place 
a still more noble crown of glory on her head, could she boast 
of industrious citizens combining talents for every species of 
practical usefulness with refined taste and cultivated under- 
standings. She would then become the preceptress of the 
world ; and prove, by her example, that labour, intelligence, 
morality, and religion, go hand in hand in promoting the 
highest enjoyments of man. 

In these Lectures, then, I have endeavoured to shew, that 
man is a progressive and improvable being ; that he is per- 
mitted to some extent to control the external elements and 
apply them to his advantage ; that where this power is de- 
nied, he may, by observing their operation, accommodate his 
conduct to their influence ; that to do either, knowledge of 
nature and its qualities is indispensable ; that a knowledge 
of nature is a knowledge of the laws of God's Secular Provi- 
dence ; that the command to acquire knowledge is thus written 
in his constitution ; and that discoveries in science and in- 
ventions in art are intended to give him leisure for studying 
nature, and for cultivating his moral and intellectual faculties. 
This Association is founded in the spirit of these views : — 
let us hold out to it the hand of encouragement, and promote 
its success. 

[The Philosophical Association, after flourishing for some 
years, became dormant ; but it was subsequently revived 
under the title of the Philosophical Institution, an account of 
which is given in the Appendix, No. 1.] 



( 75 ) 

(POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION.) 

REMARKS ON PRIZES AND PLACE-TAKING IN SCHOOLS. 

The question has been much agitated, whether it be expe- 
dient to use prizes as a stimulus to exertion in education. I 
beg leave to offer a few remarks on the subject, leaving the 
reader to decide for himself. 

The natural rewards for exerting each faculty are, first, 
The pleasure attending the exercise of the faculty itself; 
secondly, The value of the objects which it desires, when at- 
tained ; and, thirdly, The consequential advantages which 
may result from that attainment. Thus, a highly gifted 
musician derives intense pleasure, directly from exercising 
his talents ; by cultivating them he lays up a store of enjoy- 
ment for himself on which he may draw at pleasure ; and he 
may also obtain admiration from the public, and fortune, if 
he choose to dedicate his abilities to their gratification. 

In some children certain faculties enjoy high spontaneous 
activity, and the pleasure and natural advantages attend- 
ing the exercise of them, suffice to render them as active 
as any sensible teacher or parent would desire. If a child, 
for example, have a great natural talent for languages, he 
will learn to read with facility, and experience great pleasure 
in reading. Books and study will be his delight, and in many 
instances it will be more necessary to offer him a recompense 
for giving up this pleasure and resorting to play for the be- 
nefit of his health, than to stimulate him by honours and 
prizes to greater mental application. The same remarks 
apply to children who have great natural talents for drawing, 
or calculation, or mechanics, or natural history, or any other 
pursuit. They will study in the direction of these faculties 
with an ardour and a relish that will render all extrinsic re- 
wards superfluous. For such children, therefore, prizes, as 
a stimulus, are altogether unnecessary. 

There are other children, however, who have very little 
natural talent for particular branches of education which 
their parents wish them to learn, such as languages, or arith- 
metic, or mathematics ; and as they do not experience any 
direct pleasure in such studies, teachers have resorted to 
punishment for deficiency, and prizes for proficiency, in the 
prescribed exercises, as motives to exertion. It cannot be 
denied that these have a certain effect in promoting the at- 
tainment of the end in view. A boy with a moderate talent 



76 REMARKS ON PRIZES AND 

for languages will not study Greek and Latin for his own 
gratification ; whereas he may be induced to do so by receiv- 
ing a severe beating if he fail, and a gold medal if he succeed, 
in learning certain lessons. 

Even the advocates of prizes, therefore, should, in consis- 
tency, confine the application of them to the object of draw- 
ing forth exertion from children in studies which are neces- 
sary for their destination in life, but to which they are not 
naturally inclined. The indiscriminate administration of 
them is clearly erroneous. 

Prizes are of two kinds, either marks of personal distinc- 
tion, such as high places in a class, or medals worn for a day ; 
— or property, such as books, sums of money, or medals of 
gold and silver, bestowed on the individual as gifts. 

The value of the former, namely places and decorations, 
consists in the gratification which they afford to the self-love 
and vanity of the wearer. They mark, not that he is a good 
scholar, but that he is the best compared with his fellows, 
all of whom may be only indifferently accomplished. 

Two obvious objections present themselves to prizes ad- 
ministered in this form. The gratification consists not in 
the attainment of an object valuable in itself, but in a feel- 
ing of personal superiority over a neighbour. The circum- 
stance which makes a child dux, or brings him the decoration 
of medal, is not the actual possession of a certain quantity of 
useful knowledge, or of learning, but the accident of the other 
children in the class with him being more stupid or less dili- 
gent than himself. The mind of the child does not always 
contemplate the medal as the certificate that he has acquired 
a certain amount of information, but often as the symbol of 
a personal triumph over all the other children in his class. 
It therefore fosters pride and selfish ambition in the success- 
ful competitor, and envy and jealousy in the unsuccessful, feel- 
ings which are naturally strong, and need to be repressed ; 
while it does not in any appreciable degree cultivate the love 
of knowledge for its own sake, which is the legitimate object 
of education. I have known children in whom these passions 
were strong, bribe their more talented school-fellows, in 
whom they were less energetic, by giving them money or play- 
things, to resign high places and medals in their favour. They 
carried home the trophies thus acquired, and were lauded by 
their parents for their genius. This was a direct cultivation 
of falsehood and cunning, in addition to vanity and pride, in 
the children, and was calculated to exercise a baneful influ- 
ence over their future lives. 

Prizes administered in the form of donations of books, 



PLACE-TAKING IN SCHOOLS. 77 

money, or other kinds of property, do not necessarily imply 
the depreciation of other competitors, and in so far are unobjec- 
tionable. If they are offered, not as insignia of triumph over 
them, but as rewards for exertion, they appear much in the 
same light as fees paid to artists, and to men of talent in the 
professions of the law and medicine, which assuredly stimu- 
late them to diligent application. 

Great evils attend the prevalent system of administering 
prizes, some of which may be briefly noticed. 

First, In place-takings, the competition is directly personal, 
and the reward of the successful child is founded on the hu- 
miliation of his less successful fellow. In this practice the 
attention of the competitors is very little drawn to the value 
of the lessons themselves ; their minds are strongly agitated 
by the passions of ambition, envy, and hatred. Place-taking, 
therefore, appears to be calculated to throw into the shade 
the natural advantages of knowledge, and to cultivate some 
of the worst passions of our nature. 

Secondly, In place-taking, and in the usual method of 
awarding prizes, the reward is frequently assigned to those 
individuals who have least merit. If one boy enjoy from 
nature a great aptitude for learning languages, with a viva- 
cious temperament, and another possess only a moderate en- 
dowment of that talent, with a slow temperament, the latter 
may have sacrificed more hours of play and pleasure in pre- 
paring his lessons than the former, yet the clever boy shall 
reap the prize and the glory of scholarship. 

Thirdly, At the time when I was educated, punishment, 
place-taking, and prizes, were, to a great extent, relied on as 
superseding the duty on the part of the masters of teaching 
the scholars. Our lessons were prescribed, and we were left to 
learn them as we best could ; being flogged, confined, and 
put down places, if we failed to say them, and praised, put 
up, and let out of school early, if we were expert in perform- 
ing our tasks. This rendered the school literally a place of 
punishment, a character of it which seemed to be recognised 
by the teacher himself also, when he rewarded us by abridg- 
ing the hours of our confinement in it. I do not know whether 
this practice still lingers in any schools ; but I fear that it 
does. 

Fourthly, The prevalent system of place-taking and prizes 
obscures the perception in both teachers and pupils, of the 
natural pleasures and advantages of knowledge. From ex- 
perience and observation, I am satisfied that to the great 
majority of children, a school may be rendered a scene of 
delightful occupation. A well conducted infant-school, in 



78 REMARKS ON PRIZES, &C. IN SCHOOLS. 

which the moral affections are exercised, and the intellectual 
faculties instructed in objects adapted to their constitution, ' 
is resorted to by most children with positive pleasure ; and 
the majority of young men follow courses of instruction in 
science with a degree of zeal which shews that they regard 
their studies as a pleasure, and not as a burden. If place- 
taking, medals, and prizes, were abolished at ordinary schools, 
it would soon be discovered that a number of the branches 
taught, as well as the methods of instruction, are deficient 
in real interest : it would be found impossible to induce the 
scholars to make adequate exertions to learn ; and the con- 
sequence would be, that teachers would be prompted by ne- 
cessity to select branches of knowledge and methods of in- 
struction calculated to benefit the youthful mind, and thus 
improvement would be forced upon both teachers and pupils. 
Fifthly ', A considerable number of excellent and successful 
schools are now conducted without place-taking, with the best 
results both on the moral dispositions and the intellectual 
habits of the children, a fact which shews that the natural 
advantages of knowledge are sufficient to induce exertion for 
their attainment when judiciously presented to the youthful 
mind. 



In the Appendix will be found a description of an improved 
method of teaching drawing for practical purposes, for which 
I was indebted to the kindness of the late Sir John Robison, 
formerly Secretary to the Royal Society, Edinburgh. 



Postscript to the Third Edition. — The progress of sound principles 
in education is at present rapid and encouraging. The following, among 
other worts recently published, embody, to a greater or lesser extent, 
the views advocated in the preceding pages, viz. : — 

Suggestive Hints towards an Improved Secular Instruction. By the 
Rev. Richard Dawes, A.M., Vicar of King's Somborne, Hants. Groom- 
bridge & Sons, London. 

200 Class Reading Lessons, comprising a circle of Knowledge. Grades 
I. and II. By Charles Baker, Head-Master of the Yorkshire Institution 
for the Deaf and Dumb. Doncaster. 

Questions and Answers suggested by a consideration of some of the 
Arrangements and Relations of Social Life. London : Smith, Elder, & Co. 

The Laws of Periodic Growth and Development, considered with re- 
ference to Hygienic, Moral, and Intellectual Education. By Lieutenant 
J. A. Walker, II. -P., 34th Regiment. London : Simpkin, Marshall & Co. 



APPENDIX. 



No. I. 

THE PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION, 4 Queen Street, 
Edinburgh, January 1848. 

The Philosophical Institution was established for the pur- 
pose of placing within the reach of the Public the means not only 
of acquiring the fullest and most authentic information on all topics 
of immediate or passing interest, but of cultivating and extending 
the growing taste for Science, Arts, and Literature ; and although 
it has been only about fifteen months in existence, the support which 
it has already received has been in the highest degree encouraging. 

The Annual Subscription to the Institution is only One Guinea, 
and there is no Entry-money payable. For this contribution Mem- 
bers are entitled to the use of 

A News Room, very fully supplied with all the best and most 
popular Newspapers ; — 

A Reading- Room, supplied with a great variety of the most in- 
teresting and important Literary and Scientific Periodicals, Trans- 
actions of the Learned Societies of this and other countries, &c, be- 
sides a valuable collection of Atlasses, Encyclopaedias, Dictionaries, 
and other Works of Reference ; — and 

A Library for Circulation, which already consists of upwards of 
2000 Volumes of Standard Works in Literature and Science (besides 
Periodicals), and to which a liberal addition of the newest and most 
interesting Works is made every month. 

The Members have also access to a series of 

Popular Lectures, consisting of a variety of short Courses on 
interesting topics in Science, Art, and Literature, delivered gene- 
rally on the Evenings of Tuesday and Friday during the months of 
the Winter and Spring. 

A Chess Club, consisting of Members of the Institution, meets 
in the premises every Monday and Thursday Evening ; — and 

A Debating- or Discussion Society meets Weekly on Wednes- 
day Evening ; — to either of which, Members are admitted on pay- 
ment of a very small additional contribution. 

Evening Classes for Drawing, Architectural and Engineering, 
— Drawing, Figure, Landscape, and Ornamental, — English, includ- 



80 APPENDIX. 

ing Grammar, Composition, and Elocution, — Fencing and Gym- 
nastics, — French, — German,— Geology and Mineralogy, — Mathe- 
matics, — and Singing — have been instituted, with the view of accom- 
modating young men who require the aid of Teachers in the prose- 
cution of their studies. The hours of meeting are fixed so as to 
interfere as slightly as possible with ordinary business engagements, 
while the Fees are as moderate as possible, due regard being had to 
efficient Teachers and proper accommodation. 

A Refreshment Room is now fitted up on the premises for the 
convenience of Members. 

Lady's Annual contribution, Fifteen Shillings. 



No. II. 

ON AN IMPROVED METHOD OF TEACHING DRAWING. 

To John Robison, Esq., Sec. to 
the Royal Society, &c* 

Edinburgh, lQtJi January 1837. 

Dear Sir, — In conversation I have heard you mention an im- 
proved method of teaching drawing for practical purposes, which you 
recommended, and which appears to me to be calculated to be highly 
useful. Would you do me the favour to state your method in writ- 
ing, and to permit me to print the description of it in the Appendix 
to the new edition of my Lectures on Popular Education, which is 
now in the press I This may be the means of extending the know- 
ledge of it, and especially of benefiting the operative mechanics in 
whose advancement you take so enlightened an interest. — I am, dear 
Sir, yours faithfully, Geo. Combe. 

Mr Robison kindly favoured me with the following answer to this 
letter : — 

9 Atiiole Crescent, 11th January 1837. 

Dear Sir, — In reply to your request, that I should give you a 
brief statement in writing of the ideas which I entertain on the sub- 
ject of teaching drawing as a part of the ordinary course of popular 
education, I beg to say, as a preliminary, that, in what I have al- 
ready stated to you verbally, and in what I may now write, I wish 
to be understood as referring chiefly to that art or power of delinea- 
ting the objects presented to our eyes, which may be useful to every 
one in the ordinary habits of life ; and that I do not take into con- 



* Afterwards Sir John Kobison. 



APPENDIX. 81 

sideration the further training which may be required for those who 
aspire to cultivate the higher departments of the Fine Arts. 

I now proceed to say, that it appears to me that every one who can 
write is capable, with a slight effort, of making every line or mark 
which is wanted in order to represent any object presented to hiin. 
It is not, therefore, the mechanical use of the pen or the pencil which 
requires to be taught, so much as the art of looking at objects, and 
of recognising what ive really see. When the habit of noting the 
true visual forms of objects has been acquired (which it wil-1 soon be, 
if cultivated under the directions of an intelligent instructor), the 
power of delineating the outline will not be long found wanting ; the 
perception of the effects of light and shade may be acquired in the 
same way, and they will then be rendered on paper by the pupil 
with a degree of truth which he could not attain by any time or labour 
spent in copying the drawings of others. 

If a young or uninstructed person be required to make a represen- 
tation of such an object as a common pencil, he will probably pro- 
ceed to mark on his paper an outline of the actual length and breadth 
of the pencil, but he will be at a loss to shew that it is round and not 
square; again, he will not be able, without consideration, or perhaps 
explanation, to delineate on paper the different appearances which 
the pencil assumes when held nearer to or further from the eye ; or 
in positions more and more oblique until nothing be seen but the 
circular end. A little pains on the part of the instructor would lead 
a pupil to observe and comprehend all that is required to do this, by 
making him attend to what he really sees, and the lesson, when once 
acquired, would be in little danger of being forgotten, although it in 
face include the whole doctrine of perspective. 

In forming any institution for teaching drawing as a useful art, 
I should therefore propose that the pupils should, from the very com- 
mencement, be exercised in noting and delineating the appearances of 
a few simple objects, presented to their view at varied distances, 
heights, and degrees of inclination. A convenient object may be 
found in a cubical box of wood, fitted to slide on an upright rod or 
stand, on which it may be fixed at any desired height by a hollow 
through its axis. If this model be set in front of a pupil, at such a 
distance that it can be conveniently seen, and its height be made 
that of his eye, and one of the sides be parallel to his face, then, en 
noting its appearance, he will soon observe that it may be represent- 
ed by a square outline, parallel to the sides of his paper. If the 
model be then raised by sliding it up the rod, the pupil will find that 
a change in the apparent form has taken place, and that his outline 
must include a representation of the bottom, which he will be enabled 
to give, by combining his present observations with what he learned 
in studying the changes of position of the pencil in the earlier les- 
sons. He will also find, that the degrees of light falling on the two 

F 



82 APrENDIX. 

faces which he now sees are different, and require different shadings 
from the pencil. In the first case, the single face of the cube which 
he saw may have been either lighter or darker than the distant back- 
ground, and in the delineation some shading may have been required 
on the background, or on the object, according to which appeared 
darkest to him ; but in this second case, he may have three degrees 
of light to represent, according to existing circumstances. In the 
same way, the position of the model may be varied, both in respect 
to figure and to light ; or, if a class be under instruction, the pupils 
may interchange their places round the object, and each in succes- 
sion take similar views, and compare the results at the conclusion of 
each series. 

It is obvious that such a system of instruction may be pursued to 
a great extent, and with the variations which may be required ac- 
cording to the views of the pupils ; and that, even for those who 
intend to pursue the higher branches of the Fine Arts, a better 
foundation could hardly be given for enabling them to understand 
and profit by the examples left by the great masters. 

I shall be very happy that these ideas meet your approbation ; 
and if they do so, you are at liberty to make any use of them which 
you may wish. — I am, dear Sir, very faithfully yours, 

John Robison. 



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